


my treason engendered by traitors beyond me

by presumptious_quirks



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Azula (Avatar) Redemption, Azula is taken prisoner by the Water Tribe, Found Family, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, dadkoda, eventually, give her a while she's been brainwashed, think salvage but Azula-style
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:28:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27920782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/presumptious_quirks/pseuds/presumptious_quirks
Summary: When Azula is swept off her ship in a storm, she doesn't expect to be picked up by a Water Tribe boat.By theChiefof the Southern Water Tribe's boat, precisely.Hakoda isn't sure exactly what to do about this, it seems.
Relationships: Azula & Hakoda (Avatar), Azula & Mai & Ty Lee, Azula & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 186
Kudos: 338





	1. Azula vs Ocean, Part I

**Author's Note:**

> look we all know salvage is incredible and showstopping and impeccable but what if _Azula_ was the one who got found-familyed, hm? one extra scary fire princess against the combined power of Dadkoda's adoption instincts and actual good parenting 
> 
> of course she's not going to make this easy for them, but like it or not! it's gonna happen Zula

Azula was nine when she pushed her brother into the ornamental pond in the garden at the Palace.

Zuko was being stupid, again, prancing around with his dumb swords and not paying attention to her, and Azula would rather lose her fire than interrupt Father to complain.

She was fine at the edge of the pond; _she_ had the balance not to fall in. Azula was good at _everything_ , except making friends and getting Mother to love her - 

But that wouldn't matter, once she had mastered all firebending techniques. Father would be proud of her, and Zuko would admit that her company was _much_ better than his stupid dao swords. 

He followed her to the garden, like she knew he would, scrambling after her and telling her to be careful on the wet stone, as if he didn't know that she was the lucky one, as if he didn't know she'd always be fine.

Now, as she begins to sink beneath the waves for what feels like the last time, Azula knows there's no Zuko to tell her to be careful this time.

*

The storm sweeps her off the deck between one unsteady roll and another. 

Azula cries out; not in fear; as an alert, calling the attention of her crew, except she hits the swell of another wave before she can open her mouth and the sea, angry and wild, rushes up to meet her. 

She resurfaces, gasping, in the lull between a wave and in the dark, the rain lashing against the sea, she cannot make out the shape of her ship. 

She doesn't cry out again. The ocean will take her if she screams or if she remains silent, and Azula has never been one to flinch.

Azula has never been one to _die_.

*

Hakoda isn't exactly looking for survivors (the ship was Fire Nation; drowning seems a suitable fate) but he can't just ignore the dark shape floating face-up in the water. 

‘Pull us in closer,’ he orders, Aklaq steering the ship towards the - _girl_?

Hakoda stares. Blinks. Stares again. 

Nope; that is _definitely_ still a girl. Her dark hair fans out in the water around her head like a halo, her Fire-Nation-pale skin ashen against the murky waves. There's a headpiece in her hair, gold and delicate. It looks expensive; aristocratic. 

An idea takes shape in Hakoda’s mind.

‘Haul her out, men,’ he tells the surprised crew, and begins to plan.

*

Azula wakes up on a deck surrounded by strange men -

Azula screams.

Not in fear, of course. Screaming buys her enough time to leap to her feet whilst the men are still rearing back in surprise. 

She doesn't light her fire; who knows who these men are, but only a fool would reveal their advantage like that. No; best to maintain the upper hand. Her Fire Nation clothing gives her away but they can't know she's a bender unless she _bends_.

Hah. Azula is _so_ funny.

*

Here's Hakoda’s great plan: capture the Fire Nation aristocrat and use her as a bargaining chip.

Yeah, look, he knows it's not exactly the most _ethical_ thing to do in this situation, but he has men in a Fire Nation prison somewhere and a war to fight; he doesn't get to be fair.

What he isn't expecting, however, is how hard the whole _capturing_ part is proving to be.

‘Who are you?’ The Fire Nation girl asks, exuding such an air of violence that the men surrounding her all take a collective step back.

‘What's your name?’ Hakoda asks instead, fighting the urge to roll his eyes at his crew; the girl’s _tiny_ compared to them, and probably doesn't even know how to tie her own hair up unassisted. He thinks they can take her.

Ah, well. 

He's soon proved wrong.

*

Azula has calculated four different means of incapacitating the men surrounding her, five ways to kill them, and three escape plans; unfortunately, she has no clear line to the rowboats on the other side of the deck, which are objectively her only chance of survival. 

Even _she_ can't sail an entire ship by herself.

A ship that is clearly _Water Tribe_.

_Agni_ , she thinks, head pounding painfully, _of course it would be them_.

‘Come any closer and I _will_ rip your entrails out with my teeth,’ she tells one of the men, who is quite obviously trying to sneak up on her left. Honestly, Azula has _servants_ who are quieter than him.

He stops; Azula tenses her muscles in preparation.

‘Siluk, back down,’ the man who asked Azula her name and foolishly expected her to _tell_ him says. He must be the leader; Azula can recognise the underbeat of power in his voice. 

She's heard it all her life, after all.

The other man - Siluk, Azula notes - takes a few paces back without dropping his gaze. Azula counts steps in her head; _four behind to the rail, six to the men, at least twenty to the other side_. 

She can't face fourteen grown men and come out unscathed; she's fast and she's ruthless and she's the best firebender of her generation but she can only do so much. 

And she's just a little unsteady on her feet at the moment.

But no matter; Azula is Princess of the Fire Nation, the first bender in centuries to bear the Blue Flame, master of lightning, but beneath all that she is also the daughter of Ozai.

She can talk her way out of this one. 

*

Hakoda doesn't know what to make of the Fire Nation aristocrat.

She's just been fished out of freezing waters after being unconscious for who knows how long, she has a dark, purpling bruise on her head and a cut on her temple, she's soaking wet and shivering, and yet she's standing, settled into a stance that Hakoda recognises as defensive but poised to attack, which doesn't make any sense because -

Because she’s an _aristocrat_. Because aristocrats aren't supposed to know how to fight. Because Hakoda is beginning to feel the sinking, dragging sensation of dread that tells him he might have been wrong about this particular aristocrat.

Luckily for him, she chooses that moment to collapse face first onto the deck.

*

Azula has been steadily swallowing down the urge to throw up for the last seven minutes.

Her head pounds dully; it's the same kind of ache that she got when she was dehydrated, except that must be wrong, because she's completely wet through and that has to mean water which means she clearly had the opportunity to drink but she didn't because her head is aching and -

The deck pitches abruptly, which is odd because no one else seems to feel it.

Azula resets her stance, suddenly unable to find her balance. 

The deck rolls again, swinging up to meet her and Azula only knows she's fallen when she sees the dark, splintered wood and her arm stretched out across it. 

She has not fainted; Azula doesn't _faint_. 

But as she spins away into darkness, she thinks she might not be _quite_ as lucky as she always believed.


	2. Escaping 101

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Azula dreams, Hakoda tries to figure out how to politely ask the Fire Nation to take their scary aristocrat back, and Ukiak makes tea. None of this goes particularly well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so in the like, three days since I posted the first chapter this thing has gone and grown a plot all by itself. without my consent. i dId NoT aGrEe tO tHIs. i just wanted to write azula and found family but NO, now im writing a veritable colossus of twenty-plus chapters and annoyingly difficult canon divergence. anyway if youre wondering when in canon this takes place - i have no fucking clue. somewhere in some nebulous area between zuko and iroh going on the run and the whole eclipse thing, which, PLOT POINT. so buckle up bc we're going to be a w h i l e

Azula dreams of her mother.

They're in the garden, by the tree with the pink blossoms that smell like her mother’s perfume. Azula has a handful of the small, delicate petals in her lap.

Her mother’s fingers brush back her hair, twisting it gently into a topknot just like hers. Azula can see her own reflection in her mother's bright gold eyes; they look alike. Same dark hair, same light eyes, same skin. Azula has always wanted to look like her mother, even though everyone says she looks like her father. (Everyone says she’s _like_ her father).

She hands her a flower, and Ursa tucks it into her hair, the fragrance settling around them like a blessing. 

Her mother is smiling.

That's how Azula knows it's a dream.

*

‘How is she?’

‘Hypothermia, concussion, head trauma, exposure - it's not good. It's not bad, but I wouldn't count on her survival.’

‘How is that _not bad?_ ’

‘Honestly, I'm surprised she survived the water; not many could. She's strong, and healthy, but that sea is as cold as ice and less forgiving than a cheated wife.’

‘Tell me when she wakes up - _if_ she wakes up.’

*

Azula dreams of her brother.

Azula dreams of the Agni Kai.

*

‘ _Zuzu, please don't_ -’

*

‘Is she dreaming?’

‘I'd say it's more of a nightmare, but yes; she is.’

‘Is that good?’

‘Depends on the dream.’

*

Azula dreams of wooden planks above her head, a strange, soft material beneath her, voices near her. The scent of tea, stronger than she’s accustomed to, and a different blend than the ones at the Palace. She makes out the dim forms of two people across the oddly small room, talking in low voices, and - they’re in odd colours, blue and grey and white and - she shifts her head. 

Odd.

There’s not a single trace of red in this room.

Azula drifts back into sleep.

*

The healer watching her does not.

*

Azula dreams -

Azula wakes up, though the distinction is not at first apparent; the scene around her certainly looks like a dream.

She's lying on her back in a cramped bunk lined with furs, covered in what seems to be more furs, and there's what feels like a bandage on her head, which matches up with the dull ache in her temples, but does nothing to explain why she feels at once both freezing cold and searing hot.

She's had worse dreams, certainly, many of them in the past few hours.

‘Ah, you're awake.’

A person comes into Azula’s limited view, a little blurred about the edges but undeniably there.

Undeniably _Water Tribe_. The man is quite old, about Uncle Iroh’s age, she calculates, his grey hair tied back in a sort of half-ponytail with braids hanging at the front; Azula suppresses a visceral urge to set his hairdresser alight. He’s thick-set and built like a brick, so her chances of taking him on whilst in this - odd, unwell state - aren’t great. Luckily she’s not Zuko; she doesn’t attack first and ask questions later. 

She shifts back towards the wall as the man approaches, curling her hand into a fist beneath the covers, but all he does is check her bandage and hand her a cup of some foul-smelling beverage masquerading as tea, so. 

So he's probably not going to attack her.

Probably. 

Azula can't rule out the possibility; to do so would be foolish, and Azula is not a fool.

She casts a quick glance about the room; it's wooden, about a quarter of the size of Azula’s room on the Red Azalea, and half of that space is taken up with a long worktable, its legs bolted to the floor. A stack of scrolls adorn its surface, and there's a large wooden chest in one corner, by the closed door that looks to be made of some dark kind of wood.

One exit. One escape route. 

Azula begins to plan.

‘How do you feel?’ The old man asks her, sitting down at the table and pulling a scroll towards him. Azula blinks to clear her sight; her head is a little fuzzy, but it's nothing she can't manage. 

‘Like I've been drowned,’ she growls, glaring at him. The tea smells of scorched leaves and some weird herbal infusion Azula does not want to know about, but the chances that it's poisoned are rather low because she watches the man drink his cup without even flinching and she saw him pour hers from the same pot. Even so, she takes the tiniest sip - and promptly gags a little in her throat.

The man raises one bushy, unkempt eyebrow. Azula raises her own perfectly-plucked eyebrow in return; if this _unwashed heathen_ thinks he can out-eyebrow her, he’s got another thought soon approaching the finish line. Azula ranks her eyebrows third on her list of weapons; just below her fire and martial arts. In her high society life, one must suit one’s attack to one’s surroundings.

‘More tea?’

*

Hakoda hasn’t seen his kids in two years, but that doesn’t mean he can’t remember what it’s like to have them.

The Fire Nation aristocrat is very young; it’s more apparent now that she’s not collapsing all over the place, but it still comes as something of a surprise to Hakoda. She seemed so much older than she is when she was two seconds from physically attacking fourteen grown men up on deck. Hakoda thinks she must be around Katara’s age - but there the similarity stops.

The Fire Nation girl is snappish and sardonic and deeply, vexingly committed to being unhelpful.

(Okay, so maybe she’s not _too_ dissimilar to Katara).

‘What course are you following?’ She demands, sitting up against the wall on the bunk even though she’s quite clearly too weak to manage it, holding a cup of Ukiak’s infamous tea in her hands like it’s offended her.

Hakoda can’t really blame her; Ukiak’s tea is the stuff of nightmares.

‘That information is unnecessary,’ he says, and for about half a second he hopes that’s the end of it.

Ah, the naivety of his former self.

*

Hakoda starts to regret his decision the first time Siluk rushes in to tell him the Fire Nation aristocrat has escaped.

*

Azula isn’t dreaming, but she has a persistent headache and her balance is off and her temperature is concerning and she can’t firebend without giving herself away, so she’s about as helpless as she would be in a dream, anyway. 

The first time she ‘escapes’ is for reconnaissance; Azula isn’t an idiot. She lies on the cramped, stuffy bunk in the cramped, stuffy room, forced to continually breathe in the scent of scorched tea leaves, and waits til the healer - _Ukiak_ , he’d been called, and _Agni_ , even Water Tribe _names_ are weird - falls asleep at the table, dozing over one of his scrolls (honestly, the resemblance to Uncle Iroh is truly disturbing), and then she slips out of the closed door (which wasn’t even _locked_ ; Azula would be affronted by their clear underestimation of her if it wasn’t so useful), and makes her way along the corridor leading to the stairs leading to the deck leading to - 

The very large, very muscular man guarding the top of the stairs.

The _wooden_ stairs.

The whole ship is wooden; Azula could set the entire thing alight without blinking. For a moment she pictures blue flames devouring the planks beneath her feet, lighting up the night sky with the purity of her fire, the unutterable _hilarity_ of burning a Water Tribe ship down with blue, and then she slinks back into the shadows at the foot of the staircase; there’s no point in getting caught for no reason. 

Her foot scuffs on a rough plank of wood; _this_ is why metal is the superior material. The guard startles, turning to scan behind him, and Azula doesn’t bother hiding. She is the Princess of the Fire Nation; she’s faced war, rogue assassins, her father’s councillors, the poison of nobility; she’s not about to hide from a Water Tribe peasant.

The guard spots her, of course (Agni, Azula would have been _so offended_ if he hadn’t), and doesn't even bother to draw the knife at his belt, cocking an irritating grin at her. ‘Going somewhere, little girl?’

Azula is the Crown Princess of the Fire Nation, the greatest firebender of her generation, first in centuries to bear the Blue Flame, youngest ever to master lightning.

Azula punches the guard in the face.

*

Hakoda pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs.

‘Hold still,’ Ukiak says grumpily to the disgruntled form of Nanouk, rubbing salve onto the large bruise adorning his face with rather more force than strictly necessary; Nanouk winces, but doesn’t bother complaining. They all know Ukiak’s preferred brand of tough love.

Across the room, the Fire Nation prisoner is glaring at them from her position on the bunk, hands tied in front of her. She’s sitting bolt upright, again, even though she’d literally _just been_ swaying unsteadily on her feet when Aklaq had hauled both her and Nanouk in. She’s been sneering indiscriminately at all who even look at her for the past ten minutes, and now she’s flexing her hands rhythmically in their ties.

Hakoda is more than a little concerned.

‘Right,’ he says wearily, ‘We’ll lock the door, then.’

*

 _Hah_. It's hilarious the way they think they can contain her. 

Azula hears the lock click as the healer turns it, and then his footsteps in the corridor outside. 

She slips her hands out of the ropes, picks the lock, and follows the corridor in the other direction to the stairs. She's already scoped out the deck; no need to run into another guard, though Azula would appreciate the chance to destroy the first one.

She keeps to the shadows, silencing her footsteps with all the skill she’d learnt from sneaking around the Palace beating Mai and Ty Lee in hide and seek, and ducks below a low beam of wood that is just _sticking out of the ceiling_. Azula cannot believe the structural imperfections in this battered old tub. 

The corridor leads into a slightly less cramped area, strung with weird lengths of material that appear to contain sailors inside them; Azula is nonplussed to say the least. It hardly seems an efficient method of storage; and it does _not_ look comfortable. 

Dismissing that thought, she sneaks between two empty pieces of cloth and onwards to what seems to be the galley. Azula doesn’t bother going down there; what use does she have for it? Food is fleeting and futile; maps, however, will provide her with the information she needs.

The ship is relatively silent, (it _is_ after midnight), apart from the faint sounds of a quill scratching against paper coming from behind the closed door of the only other partitioned cabin in the ship; a weak beam of light leaks out beneath the door, illuminating the passage. Azula can sense the flame burning in the candle beyond, if she tries. 

The cabin is big, which means it has to be the peasant leader’s. And if Azula is going to get _any_ information about where this stupid ship is heading, it's going to be in there.

As far as Azula can see, she has two problems (apart from the obvious _she's on the enemy's ship_ one): if she reveals her firebending, the Water Tribe will either torture her, incapacitate her, kill her, or pass her onto one of their allies, who will likely throw her in a cell and play pain games with her. However, if she wants to escape this stupid ship, she needs charts to show their current position; she can't just take one of the rowboats and float around aimlessly. The Eastern Sea is wide and deep and Azula does not particularly want to get lost on it. But the charts are most likely to be inside that cabin, which will require firebending to get inside. 

Azula weighs up the risks, and then she reaches out her bending and snuffs the flame from outside.

*

Hakoda is a chief, and so he manfully very much does not scream when the candle on his desk goes out.

He is in the long, arduous process of writing a letter to the Fire Nation that does not read like a ransom note; a problem, because that's exactly what it is.

And what even is the proper syntax? Hakoda doesn't know how to demand the release of his men in exchange for the life of a young girl in correct court language; of course he doesn't. He's never done this before.

He pushes down the pinprick of guilt that sparks at that thought; the girl may be Katara’s age, but she's Fire Nation. She's the enemy, and if Hakoda ever wants to win this damned war, he's going to have to make concessions to his personal principles. 

And anyway, it looks like they teach aristocrats how to fight these days; Hakoda snorts at the memory of Nanouk’s shocked face. The Fire Nation girl clearly packed her punches, in spite of her diminutive size. Hakoda will carry the image of all six-feet-four-inches of Nanouk knocked flat on the deck by a girl half his size with him forever; no one is going to let Nanouk forget this anytime soon.

His grin falls slightly. How _did_ the girl know how to do that? If this is going to be a problem, Hakoda needs to deal with it. He will not endanger his crew anymore than he's had to, and if that means locking up the surprisingly dangerous aristocrat then he'll do it.

But why didn't she use fire? Hakoda could've sworn she was a firebender; the way she carried herself up on deck, the stance she used; he's seen them all before in the forms of the firebenders he's faced.

He glances at the candle flickering by his elbow, casting warm light over the frustratingly blank piece of parchment before him. How can something so gentle be used for so much evil? How can one element be turned against another without subverting the natural order of the world?

As if in response, the candle snuffs out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, writing ukiak and hakoda: is there a limit on potential father figures?
> 
> next chapter - azula's truly spectacular naming abilities. if the plot for these first few chapters seems nonexistent thats because it is. i have yet to figure all of it out, so you're getting interactions that take place solely on this ship in the middle of the ocean until i know where im going.


	3. Look, Names Are Hard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Azula's truly spectacular naming abilities. Hakoda regrets his decision, Siku and Pamiuq get a new job. As is par for the fucking course, none of this goes well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and here we have a princess of the fire nation, attempting to think up an alias that is not immediately suspicious. Not Her Strong Point.  
> allow me to present my ocs, siku and pamiuq, known hereafter as the fucking idiots. alright im off to go ramble in the end notes, which - side point: does anyone know how the fuck to make the first note from chapter one stop attaching itself to every other note???? i Do Not Know How This Works. pls help.

Azula used to catch sparks with her brother, back when they were young and no one had come between them yet. 

Zuko would throw his fire into the air, letting it float down around them in bright orange embers that Azula would catch in her outstretched hands, never burning her because Zuko would never let that happen. His flame always glowed brightest when he was like that, unwatched by Father, and as a consequence, unafraid. 

Azula used to be like that, long ago when she had not yet learned the measure of loyalty or the punishment its absence brings. 

They stopped playing that game when Azula was nine, but even before that it had been less and less, until it was gone. Zuko got his dao swords and Father’s hatred, Ursa left them in the middle of the night without a word of explanation or goodbye, and Azula carried on like she always did. Kept improving, kept succeeding, achieving, watching Father burn half Zuko’s face off, mastering lightning, her fire glowing blue. 

Azula hasn’t caught sparks in years; it's fitting, almost, that she should do so _now_ , on the enemy’s ship, for a goal that is not her own. The final memory tarnished, purified. 

Her mother wouldn't have said goodbye to Azula, she knows, but Ursa loved Zuko. Azula thought she'd at least have told him, but when she asked him, trussed up in taunts and veiled threats, he was as empty of answers as she.

Azula had been nine when her mother left. 

Azula is not nine now.

*

Hakoda strikes a match in the darkness; it flickers, unsteady, and then dies, as if blown out by some invisible force.

He sighs. 

The crew are all sleeping when he steps out of his cabin, minus Anik on watch up on the deck. Hakoda puts out a hand to the wall and follows it along and down to the hold, past a strangely still patch of black that seems darker than the rest. Hakoda takes no notice; the door to Ukiak’s cabin is soundly bolted; no prisoner could escape there.

*

The peasant chief strikes a match; Azula breathes in, feeling the flame bend toward her as it burns, and closes it. 

That’s what this form feels like; _the connection to naturally-occurring flames, or those produced by artificial means_. One cannot control another’s fire, but external flames are able to be reached.

‘ _Feed it with yourself, Princess Azula_ ,' her teachers had told her, and Azula had sneered and snapped her fingers, extinguishing the small, weak flame on the spindly match they’d lit.

Now she does the same, reaching for the fire and drawing it to herself, reversing the flow that would normally stem from her inner flame to the outside source. Everytime the peasant chief tries to light one of his stupid firesticks, Azula pulls it away; crude, but effective.

Just like Zuko’s sparks, Azula thinks, and surprises herself by how much that hurts.

On his fifth unsuccessful try, the chief gives up, sighing in frustration. Azula finds herself tensing at the sound before she forcibly relaxes her muscles; Father’s frustration often brought angry streams of fire or bolts of lightning hurled at whoever displeased him most. Azula is adept at dodging his wrath; it has never been directed at her, as yet, because Azula at least has a functioning brain and knows how to stay on his good side, _really, Zuko_ , but every so often a servant or a guard isn’t _quite_ quick enough on their feet.

She melts back into the shadows as the chief stumbles past her in the dark, heading to what must be the hold. Azula waits until he descends into the lower part of the ship before she moves, slipping through the open door into the cabin.

She lights a single, flickering flame in her palm, scanning the room. 

The chief’s cabin is frustratingly _Water Tribe_ ; blue clothes are folded neatly in an open chest in one corner, furs line the bunk at one side, and the walls are scattered with seashells and odd objects nailed to the wood. The only concession to modernity and the march of civilization is the desk, a heavy, mahogany object set back against a wall, its base bolted firmly to the floor. 

Azula hurries over to the other side, where ink and parchment are strewn across the surface, sifting through the stray paper til she pulls the charts out from underneath what looks to be the draft of a letter; not a very good one, clearly. The chief had apparently only gotten as far as ‘To’; the address is absent.

Azula scans the charts, trying to pinpoint the ship’s position. The maps are irritatingly difficult to read; the accursed Water Tribe, _again_ , Azula thinks, and briefly considers igniting the whole ship.

_There._

She identifies their location, deciphering the practically illegible notes the navigator’s made on the map, the pieces of her plan slotting into place around it.

Except -

 _Curse it_ , Azula thinks, very clearly and belligerently at whoever’s out there.

The ship is right in the middle of - _nowhere_.

And even Azula can’t sail her way out of the middle of the Eastern Ocean without supplies and water and a direct path to safety.

She slides the map carefully back to its original position, snapping her flame out and slipping through the door and down the corridor to the healer’s cabin.

Once inside, she relocks the door and sits down to plan.

*

‘Why do I have to bring the scary prisoner food? I don’t need to die!’

‘Literally _no one_ needs that, Siku.’

‘Exactly! I don’t want to get _scarred for life_ like Nanouk!’

Azula sighs. Loudly.

The voices outside her door fall instantly silent.

Then:

‘Can she hear us?’ The younger one whispers, which doesn’t actually work, because he clearly thinks ‘whispering’ is the same as ‘shouting in a higher pitch’. Azula rolls her eyes longsufferingly.

‘Well, she can _now_ ,’ the other replies testily. There’s the sound of the door being unlocked and then it slides open to reveal two very awkward-looking Water Tribe peasants who clearly have no idea how any of this works, holding a large plate of what _looks_ like food, except Azula has never seen anything like it before. It certainly isn't any kind of food found in the Fire Nation.

Azula sneers, rather reassuringly in her book. ‘Who are you?’ She asks, and then changes her mind. ‘Actually, don’t bother. I don’t care.’

‘Siku,’ the older one who apparently doesn’t understand instructions says, jerking his thumb in his crewmate’s direction. ‘Pamiuq.’ The thumb moves to himself.

Azula raises an unimpressed eyebrow. 

‘How enlightening,’ she remarks, which, _hah, pun_. Azula really does have an _excellent_ sense of humour.

The two peasants exchange bewildered glances.

Azula sighs.

‘Okay, I’m bored now,’ she tells them, which happens to be the first honest thing she’s said on this Agni-forsaken ship.

‘That’s, uh, _understandable_ ,’ the younger one - Siku? Siko? - says, swallowing awkwardly as the other shoots him an incredulous look, mouthing ‘understandable’ disbelievingly.

‘Is it? How nice,’ Azula says drily. She’s acutely aware of how long it’s been since she last ate, but there is no way in hell she’s asking for food if they're not offering her it. If this is some kind of sick psychological trick, taunting her with food and never giving her it, she's not falling for it. She’s a prisoner, and apparently to the Water Tribe, that means starvation measures. 

And torture, in the form of _tea_. 

*

‘Chief, the prisoner’s kind of on, well, _hunger strike_ ,’ Pamiuk says awkwardly.

Hakoda stares at him.

‘...what?’

Pamiuk rubs the back of his neck. ‘Yeah. She’s, uh, she’s not really _eating_ anything we bring her.’

Hakoda regrets his decision. Hakoda regrets his decision _so much_.

*

After the failed attempt to mentally weaken her, the chief comes to see Azula.

‘Miss, uh - what is your name?’ He asks, closing the door behind him and sitting down at the table across from the healer Ukiak. Azula tenses preparatively, calculating her chances of taking him down in a fight. She counts the steps to the door, running through the advantages and disadvantages of the space.

‘My name is Az-’ she starts out of habit, half her mind occupied with planning her next move, and stops herself just in time. The chief looks at her expectantly. ‘...Ursula.’

 _Perfect_. Azula tamps down the flash of irritation that flares up inside her; _seriously? Ursula?_ A mere portmanteau of her mother’s name and her own, and _that_ is what she chose to go with? Azula is shocked at her own inefficiency. 

‘And your surname, may I ask?’ The chief takes the piece of paper Ukiak offers him, dipping the quill in the inkstand.

Azula considers.

She plans to escape this ship on one of the rowboats, but if that fails she needs a backup, an opportunity to be rescued. She needs a way of alerting Mai and Ty Lee of her current position without giving herself away.

‘Mailee,’ she replies steadily, internally imagining setting the whole ship alight in sheer repulsion. It’s not her best alias, obviously, but it will get the job done. Mai and Ty Lee will recognise it, and that’s all that’s necessary.

Even if it does make her want to swallow her own fire.

‘Ursula Mailee…’ the chief repeats, a little doubtfully. 

There’s a rather loud snort from Ukiak’s corner.

Azula glares at him.

*

‘May I ask, why haven't you used firebending on this ship?’ Hakoda finally voices what's been vexing him since the girl turned up.

The Fire Nation aristocrat goes very still, something like distaste crossing her face.

‘I am a nonbender,’ she says, looking as if the words physically pain her to say. Hakoda supposes the Fire Nation places such importance on bending that it would be a point of dishonour not to have any. For a moment he's forcibly reminded of Sokka, the way he hides his envy and that fear of not being enough that Hakoda can still see, no matter how hard his son tries to conceal it.

It's an unsettling comparison, one Hakoda doesn't want to think about too hard.

Dismissing that thought, he nods, acknowledging her admission. 

'You understand that you are a prisoner of war, Miss Mailee?' He says, even though he's not actually entirely sure about that bit.

The girl - _Ursula_ , apparently - gives a sharp nod. 

'Do you have any complaints about your treatment?'

She stares at him, a muscle in her jaw tensing. 

'No, I do not.'

And then he has to address the very weird part of all of this.

‘Then why aren't you eating?’ Hakoda asks wearily, rubbing his forehead. 

The girl’s eyebrows draw together in what looks like confusion before ironing out again. 

‘How do I know the food isn't poisoned,’ she says grimly, what would be a question from any other person turning into a statement. 

Hakoda stares, and then abruptly decides he doesn't have time to unpack all of that.

‘I...see,’ he says, nonplussed. ‘I don't suppose you'd take my word that it isn't?’

The girl sneers. 

So that's a no, then. 

They appear to have reached an impasse.

Ukiak coughs. ‘If I might suggest,’ he says, and Hakoda feels a jolt of apprehension at the devilish glint in his eye, ‘Perhaps we could come to an arrangement by which Miss, uh, _Mailee_ -’ he pauses, mouth twitching, ‘- can put her mind at rest.’

Hakoda nods warily. Ukiak is well known for his meddlesome ways; the whole ship lives in terror of his fearsome pranks. ‘Go on.’

*

_'What?'_

Hakoda grimaces. ‘I know, Siku, it's not great, and believe me - if I could think of something else, I would, but this really is the only option.’

Siku stares at him in disbelief. His chief did _not_ just say he had to effectively babysit the Fire Nation prisoner because she thought they were going to poison her.

Except, apparently, he did. Siku gapes at him. 

Look, he knows Hakoda’s wise and a Chief and everything, but this is a bit steep. Even _Siku_ can see the risks of this one, and he's been reliably informed by literally _everyone he's ever known_ that he does _not_ have a functioning set of self-preservation instincts (which honestly Siku considers an advantage most days). 

Pamiuq nudges him with his elbow. 

‘Come on,’ he tells him, apparently resigned to their inevitable fate. ‘We have a scary prisoner to placate.’ 

Siku trails after him like a kicked puppy, still contemplating the possibility that Hakoda might have mislaid a few of his marbles along the way. 

_*_

‘The taste-testers are here!’ Siku says, pushing open the door to the prisoner’s room with his shoulder. 

Pamiuq winces. In typical Siku fashion, his crewmate had recovered from the shock of his new role and, in the intervening ten minutes that it took to collect the food from the galley, immediately hurtled into cracking extremely dubious jokes to hide his obvious nerves. Pamiuq supposes it's the best course of action for him, but Siku’s near-constant frenetic energy is now being channelled into annoying _everyone_ on the ship, not just Pamiuq - up to and including the very terrifying prisoner, who could probably kill _at least_ one of them in the time it takes to raise the alarm. 

‘Hello again,’ Pamiuq says, more reservedly. 

The prisoner stares at them disturbingly, narrowing her unusual (and quite unsettling) gold eyes. 

'Put the food on the table, Idiot One,’ she orders, and it's a testament to how scared of her Siku is that he doesn't even protest the nickname, just sets the plates down instantly. 

Pamiuq takes a seat across from the prisoner firmly to demonstrate his independent will. Siku may be a nervous wreck, but Pamiuq has dignity. Pamiuq has _style_. Pamiuq does not falter in the face of death. 

Siku scrambles into the seat next to him, shifting his chair so close he's practically hiding behind Pamiuq’s arm. 

So much for dignity. 

The prisoner watches this with a bored expression on her face, but Pamiuq notes that her eyes track his every movement with terrifying accuracy. 

It's more than a little creepy, all things considered. 

He clears his throat loudly. Siku jumps beside him. ‘Would you like some...seal jerky?’ He offers, lamenting the fact that Siku’s case of awkward has apparently transferred itself to him, too. 

The prisoner sneers. It's almost comforting, a nice departure from her recent blank-faced creepiness. 

‘After you,’ she says, and makes it sound like a threat. 

And so commences the most uncomfortable meal of Pamiuq’s life. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, writing siku and pamiuq : they're idiots your honour 
> 
> as you can probably tell by now, ukiak holds the only braincell in the entire ship, and he's using it to play pai sho. 
> 
> Next up: what happens when you combine work and azula's rampant perfectionism. she's gonna kill someone i can just feel it.


	4. Azula vs Basic Self-Preservation Instincts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nanouk, you fucking idiot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes ik its been like a week or something but life got in the way. also full disclosure - i know literally nothing about sailing a ship of this size, i've only sailed those small single-sail ones you get on lakes, so. any inconsistencies you see, no you don't.

Azula wakes in the morning with the burning, overwhelming desire to _achieve_.

Her inner flame feels pent-up, stretched-thin, coiled in on itself like a spring waiting to leap free. She hasn’t firebent in three days, and her fire is scorching the edges of her chest, boiling over inside her with the need to be let out. Azula’s control has always been excellent, but here, helpless and with barely any hope of surviving the war, her restraint is fraying like a rope pulled too tight. 

At the palace, she practiced for four hours every day. She trained at the Academy, she surpassed all her classmates and then her teachers and then the masters themselves, until the only firebenders capable of matching her were Ozai and Uncle Iroh.

And - _Zuko_ , sometimes. He’d grown, recently. When she last saw him, on the deck of her ship spewing flames at her guards after Azula’s impromptu _come-home_ speech, he’d been better. Not as good as her, of course ( _Agni, as if_ ), but he’d clearly improved. Perhaps banishment had been good for him. 

It certainly isn’t for her.

On this ship, without her fire, without her title, without the power that always accompanies her true name like a shroud, Azula is finding it hard to hold on to her control. 

The rising sun dips through the porthole by her bunk, glinting off the waves beyond. Azula breathes in, trying to regain that sense of balance that usually comes with the sun. She lights a small flame in her palm, trying to use what little private time she has to correct the tangled fire inside her, but it overshoots, scorching towards the ceiling before she wrenches it back, her control in shreds.

Azula glares at the centre of her palm where the flame had been. She hasn’t been this imprecise since Zuko was banished; when she’d been eleven and truly alone for the first time. Even if Zuko had left, even if he hadn't cared enough to notice her for many years before, even if she'd once wished he'd just _acknowledge_ her, how good she was, they'd still been siblings. Azula used to feel that it was them against the world, back when she was young and naive and had not yet learnt the importance of Father’s pride.

She sighs out an exhale tinged with more than just physical fatigue. 

‘Knock, knock!’ The overly cheery voice of the smaller idiot shatters Azula's early morning self-doubt session, his beyond ridiculous words punctuated by an _actual_ knock on the door. 

Honestly. It's _embarrassing_ how inefficient they are. Azula can't wait to get home and tell the Fire Lord that she was detained by a bunch of morons with bad eating habits.

‘Enter,’ Azula deigns to respond, rising to take her usual seat at the table ( _back against the wall, facing the door, all exits covered_ ).

The two idiots walk in with their typical brash, loud, irritating cheerfulness. The older one ( _Panuk? Pamiuq?_ ) slides the plates onto the table and takes his own seat. The younger one has seemingly lost his nerves and now chatters incessantly whenever Azula is forced to endure his company.

‘-and then Aklaq steered us _right_ into the tree and I fell off the sled!’ He clambers into his chair with all the grace of a newborn platypus bear. ‘Have you ever been sledding?’

It takes Azula a moment to realise he’s talking to her. 

‘No,’ she says firmly, waving a hand at the food. Lesser Idiot takes it as the order it is, actually remembering his position of poison-tester and not conversationalist.

They eat in relative silence for a while, the smaller idiot too occupied with stuffing himself with every possible edible substance in sight to have much time for talking. Azula eases slightly, relaxing her almost perpetually tensed muscles in the quiet. Her inner flame is still coiled tightly inside her chest, and she shifts restlessly. This feeling of suffocation is likely to interrupt her plans for escape. There isn’t much she can do about it here, unless - 

‘Tell me, Lesser Idiot,’ Azula asks, inflecting such menace into her tone that the peasant in question pales visibly, ‘What kind of _work_ is there to do on this Agni-forsaken ship?’

Lesser Idiot stares at her. ‘...what?’ He manages, after swallowing extensively. Azula applauds his eloquence of speech. 

‘Work,’ she repeats considerately. ‘That thing you peasants do so much of.’

Lesser Idiot continues to stare at her, mouth hanging open. The other idiot appears to be trying to make himself disappear, his gaze darting between the two of them.

‘You _do_ know what work is?’ Azula queries, raising an eyebrow, and Lesser Idiot nods reluctantly.

‘Uh, yeah, of course, I just -’ he says, passing to shoot a glance of abject desperation at his more moronic companion, who, as usual, has nothing intelligent to add to the conversation, ‘- didn't, uh, really expect you to - want to know about it.’

‘I don't want to know about it, I want to _do it_ ,’ Azula snaps belligerently. Typical peasants, utterly unable to parse out the basic implications in a sentence.

The idiots blink at her in truly disturbing synchronicity.

‘But you're… _Fire Nation_ ,’ the smaller one says, in the voice of one who believes this to be an actual reason for doubt.

Azula sneers, eyes narrowing.

‘You _Water Tribe_ may not understand the importance of discipline,’ she sneers, ‘but I can assure you, the Fire Nation _does_.’

‘I - yeah. Sure,’ Lesser Idiot says. He looks down at the food, avoiding Azula’s sharp gaze, but she lets it go this once. She knows the balance one has to strike between the iron fist and the velvet glove; _she_ isn’t Father.

*

After breakfast, the two peasants engage in an exceptionally unsubtle whispered conversation about the potential risks of letting ‘the scary prisoner’ out, which they eventually resolve by Lesser Idiot sticking his head out the door and hollering for someone called ‘Anik’. 

Anik materialises as a very large, bulky sailor who doesn't actually seem to mind being ordered about by two teenagers half his age. Azula isn't sure how that works.

She expected a tough guard; what she isn't expecting is to be led to the galley, after a pit stop at the chief’s cabin where Anik had stuck his head in to consult the chief and been waved away absently. (Azula is more than a little insulted that she is apparently not considered enough of a threat for the chief to object).

‘You do realise that just because I'm female does not _in any way_ mean I can cook?’ Azula snaps sharply.

The guard looks at her, then at the galley, then shrugs. This appears to be the sum total of his response. 

Azula fumes silently, but takes the apron the cook hands her after a moment of staring at her in surprise. If these Water Tribe _men_ think she can't cook as well as anyone on this ship, she'll soon prove them wrong. Azula may never have cooked a single thing in her entire life, but she's a quick learner. That fact is _well_ documented. 

*

The cook stops her some untold amount of time later, and Azula comes out of her state of hyperfocus, zeroing in on him.

‘Well? What else?’ She snaps. 

‘I...there _is_ nothing else,’ the cook tells her faintly.

*

Anik thought guarding the prisoner was going to be filled with aristocratic complaints and snobbery, something along the lines of _we of the Fire Nation would never sully our hands with such work_.

Instead, it's -

Well. 

Anik doesn't really know.

The prisoner just keeps _working_. First she makes the day’s meals, then the next, then a full week’s supply, sorts the cupboards into some hyper-specific order literally no one in the galley can understand, gives everyone in sight a very loud, very aggressive lecture on hygiene, yells at Anik, the cook, and Siku in quick succession, and now - 

Now she's staring around, looking like she's searching for yet another task she can do whilst glaring menacingly at anyone who crosses her path. 

Anik can't deny he is a little impressed. 

(Even if he finds the notion vaguely nauseating). He and the cook exchange identical looks of very grudging respect.

‘Well?’ The prisoner snaps, clicking her fingers at him. Anik looks down at her; she's half his size, but he can't deny she's got a handle on her intimidation techniques; he thinks of Nanouk and represses a grin. ‘What else is there that needs doing? Don't just stand there; unlike you, I do not have time to waste. The state of this ship is _revolting_ ; what do you do to it? Clean it on its birthday?’

Anik sighs. ‘You can try the work up on deck.’

Without waiting for him to follow, the prisoner stalks out of the galley and up the stairs, exuding such an air of general unhingedness that Pamiuq retreats up the steps when he sees her coming.

Anik sighs again and trudges after her.

*

Hakoda looks up from his sixth failed draft of the letter to the Fire Nation and blinks distractedly at Anik, standing in the doorway.

‘Problem?’

‘Not quite, Chief.’ Anik grins. ‘Your Fire Nation aristocrat’s outdoing Nanouk on the sails; you might want to see this.’

*

In Azula's defence, it genuinely is the beefy sailor’s fault. 

She's on the deck, rigorously doing what the crew incomprehensibly referred to as ‘ _swabbing_ ’ (a task Azula would never have sullied herself with before; but she has little choice, and she was never one to make decisions based on the past), and keeping a watchful eye on the men working the sails (if she wants to escape, she needs to know at least the _basics_ of sailing), when the muscular guard she'd punched catches her looking. Azula swipes her hair out of her eyes and meets his gaze.

‘Think you can manage it, princess?’ He says, smirking. 

Her breath catches in her throat for a moment before she forces herself to think rationally. The sailor obviously doesn't know of her true identity; it's likely just his crude, unimaginative attempt at an insult. Azula almost sneers; as if _that_ could ever be an insult.

Azula rises from her kneeling position with all the regalness of her rank, spine straight, head up, shoulders braced.

‘What, better than you?’ She sneers, falsely sweet. 

Punch Guy glares at her, mouth thinning into a line, and Azula feels a flash of preemptive adrenaline. Her inner flame burns higher, fanned by the obvious mockery in the man’s eyes. 

‘If you want to try, go ahead.’ He gestures to the mast, stepping away from it to clear a path for her.

Azula raises an eyebrow. 

Many people have tried to best her before; she's the Crown Princess, competition is kind of in the job description, but the difference between them and this is that they were at least _objectively_ trying to help her succeed further. It's been a long time since anyone challenged Azula to something that wasn't for her own personal benefit. 

She almost misses the days when Zuko was still around, except of course she can't because that would be borderline treasonous and Azula will never betray the Fire Nation. Ever. 

She raises an eyebrow, and steps up to the mast.

*

The mast sways beneath her. Azula isn't afraid; Azula is _never_ afraid. She has fallen from greater heights and landed safely before; she has fallen from propelling herself with her fire; she has fallen from the walls of the Palace chasing Zuko and come down unscathed.

She reaches the topsail before Punch Guy; of course she does. Azula balances easily on the small beam from which the sail hangs, reaching across it to the thick ropes lashing it together. She copies the movements of the men she'd watched; looping the rope tighter, tying it in the knot she'd seen them use.

Below her she hears Punch Guy reach the sail, the mast creaking under his weight as he clambers onto the tiny platform. 

The wind picks up, the mast swaying abruptly.

‘Look, princess, you've proved your point,’ Punch Guy says, eyeing the whipping sails apprehensively as they lash against the beams. ‘You don't have to finish it; it's getting rough up here, especially for someone like you.’

‘ _Someone like me_?’ Azula spits, glaring daggers at him as she gathers another fistful of fabric and pulls it taut, the wind whipping her hair across her face. ‘I am Crown Princess Azula of the Fire Nation and I will _not_ be defeated by some pesky sail!’

‘You're _what?_ ’ Punch Guy shouts, but Azula doesn't hear him because a sudden violent gust of wind buffets against the sails and the mast sways dizzyingly and she isn't holding on _quite_ tight enough as it lurchs sideways and Azula _falls_.

*

The annoying Fire Nation aristocrat yells something at Nanouk over the howling of the wind, something that sounds like her name, Ursula, and his stupid nickname for her.

‘You're what?’ Nanouk yells back, distracted by the sails whipping against the mast, except the wind picks up and slams into the ship and the mast tilts and the girl isn't one of them, she doesn't know how to balance like this, doesn't know to _hold on_ and _stay close to the mast_ and Nanouk can only watch as she slips, plummeting towards the deck below. 

He shuts his eyes, hands scraping raw against the rough wood, unable to look.

There's a cry from below. It sounds like Siku.

*

Siku cries out as the prisoner falls, hiding his face in Pamiuq’s shoulder. He can't look, not like this, not when his thirteen-year-old sister died five years ago in front of him, not when he could almost see Yura in the Fire Nation girl, that same steel-eyed determination, that same look on her face like she'd always have to _prove_ what she was worth.

Siku can't look, but he forces himself to, and the girl falls through the air.

*

Hakoda steps out on deck, eyes searching the rigging for the shapes of Nanouk and the girl - Ursula, her name is - as Anik comes to a stop by his shoulder.

The crew have all decided it's a good idea to stop work and gawk, clearly, and Hakoda is just about to crack a joke when Siku gives a cry, pointing up at the rigging swinging high above them. 

The girl slips, falls, hurtles towards the deck.

Hakoda shoves the frozen form of Aklaq out of the way, running toward the mast in the foolish, futile hope that he can somehow _prevent_ this, except - 

*

Azula falls - 

Azula lands on her feet. (She always does).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nanouk please shut up you're such an idiot. 
> 
> anyway, in other news, salvage updated and i need to read that RIGHT NOW so bye


	5. How To Not Reassure Your Scary Prisoner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hakoda tries to be nice. It backfires, because Azula doesn't know how to recognise when someone's being nice to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> have i told you how much i love siku? because i do. excessively.

When Azula was four, she met Mai and Ty Lee.

When Azula was four, she formed an alliance.

When Azula was four, she learned the price of loyalty, and she never let them forget it for as long as they were together, the trio with Azula at its head, Ty Lee at its heart, and Mai between them with a blade in each hand.

They knew not to betray her. They knew that Azula was their best bet, their only protection, their sole guardian against the poison that seeped through the palace, and Azula is counting on them to remember that now.

Now, when she's near-helpless and handicapped by the infuriating persistence of the Water Tribe peasants, when she needs them most.

Azula trusts Mai and Ty Lee. There's a shortlist of people Azula trusts, and the only other one on it is her foolish brother, who cannot even capture the Avatar without suffering an existential crisis. Azula trusts him to be wrongheaded and idealistic and naive; she doesn't expect him to trust _her_ , although she did let him go without much of a fight, which some might call weakness.

Azula calls it strategic treason.

She's trusting Mai and Ty Lee now, blindly, to figure out her admittedly poor message and find her in time, before the Water Tribe have a chance to pass her off onto some Earth Kingdom prison where they crush firebenders’ hands and feet and sew their mouths shut.

(Well. She suspects that last one may have been an exaggeration; Zuko is not exactly known for his preciseness of recall).

She's trusting Mai and Ty Lee, and Azula can't help but remember all the times she mocked Ty Lee’s circus origins, or taunted Mai about her (admittedly pitiful) crush on Zuko, or flaunted her own superiority over them. Azula isn't _guilty_ , or _ashamed_ , but nonetheless she can't deny she feels a certain - _apprehension_. If Mai and Ty Lee decide not to help her, she's sunk. (Hah, _pun_ ).

Though _what_ they would think of her if they knew she was currently _working in a kitchen_ , Azula does not know. The thought is still a bit raw for her as it is; she catches herself daydreaming about setting the galley on fire every now and then. 

The colossal, irritatingly-heavy iron pot on the stove is simmering, steam rising in spirals from its surface, as Azula waits for it to cook, sitting at the table and avoiding conversation with the cook. 

She’d made a tactical retreat (read: _fled_ ) down here to escape the constant, unraveling panic up on deck. The crew had _allegedly_ thought she was going to _die_ when she took the shortest way down from the mast (honestly, Azula is almost offended that they think she’s _that_ fragile), and are now dealing with it in typical male fashion. There’s a lot of yelling. Azula doesn’t particularly enjoy being yelled at, no matter how apparently-deserved it is.

The cook ( _Agni_ , Azula _still_ doesn’t know his name) wasn’t up on deck, and as such has yet to hear of Azula’s apparent misdemeanour. Azula can’t deny it’s strangely peaceful in the galley, with the gentle sound of the soup (that she made herself) bubbling on the stove and the (unfortunately mild) spices infusing the air with their scents, and the cook pretending to read a recipe book. 

Azula relaxes slightly in her chair. Her inner flame feels settled, less tightly-wound than it had that morning, which she puts down to the morning’s work. She doesn’t precisely _enjoy_ the menial labour she has been reduced to doing, but she supposes it's something to do, with firebending so off-limits.

‘I’d like to talk to you, Miss Mailee,’ the chief says, appearing in the doorway like the veritable spectre at the feast, and the peaceful mood is shattered.

Azula tenses, calculates the odds that he’s going to kill her, and follows him out of the galley.

*

Hakoda stares at the belligerent teenager in front of him.

‘No more stunts like that,’ he says firmly. The prisoner’s eyes flick to the door and away, as if plotting an escape route.

Hakoda sighs. The prisoner tenses even further. Hakoda isn't even aware that's possible.

Not for the first time, Hakoda wishes Bato were here. His second would know how to deal with this; Bato had always been the diplomatic one between them. Hakoda may be the Chief, but Bato is his advisor, the only one who knows how to talk him out of reckless decisions. Like this one. 

But Bato is currently holed up in an abbey somewhere recovering from having half his arm burned off. Suddenly Hakoda doesn't feel so inclined to believe whatever the Fire Nation prisoner says.

‘As a prisoner of war, you are under my jurisdiction,’ he says, voice coming out a little sharper than he'd intended. The prisoner doesn't flinch, but her eyes flick to the door again. ‘Which means no more stunts like that. You are banned from working on, climbing, or _being around_ the mast; if I catch you near it again, this whole situation will get a lot less accommodating. Do I make myself clear?’

The prisoner glances at the door. ‘Perfectly clear,’ she says. Her shoulders are stiff, like she's expecting an attack. Hakoda narrows his eyes. 

‘Do you have any complaints about your treatment?’ He asks, unable to shake the odd feeling of distaste that her reactions bring. He's intimidating, yes, but he's never seen a child so simultaneously afraid of him and determined not to show it. And she _is_ a child, he is reminded forcibly. She's barely Katara’s age, just a few years below Sokka. The thought makes something like _shame_ burn in his chest; he’s bargaining for his men with the life of a young girl.

‘I do not,’ she says. Her voice is oddly formal, a distinct difference from what he’s heard her say to Siku and Pamiuq, from her antagonistic sneering and taunts to Nanouk. It’s like she’s holding herself back, somehow, he thinks, and can't shake the feeling that there's more to this than just disparate ideologies.

Hakoda frowns at the paper in front of him, the blank white sheet staring judgmentally back up at him, and sighs. If he doesn't at least offer the Fire Nation girl the opportunity to send word to her family, he's going to hate himself.

‘Look, I’m a father myself -’ he starts, and the prisoner tenses, shoulders rigid, her eyes going wide with what looks like _terror_.

_What the hell_ , Hakoda thinks, staring at her with a half-formed suspicion materializing in the back of his mind.

*

‘Look, I’m a father myself,’ the chief says, and Azula freezes. 

Azula freezes, because _fathers_ mean manipulation and Zuko burning before her eyes and unattainable standards of perfection she tries so hard to achieve but never _quite_ manages. Fathers mean _fire_ , and _banished_ , and her mother leaving in the middle of the night without saying goodbye because Ozai wanted to be Fire Lord and was willing to sacrifice Zuko to achieve it. Fathers mean saying _I'm proud of you_ and stabbing you in the back when you smile. Fathers mean everything Azula has ever feared.

The Chief is a father, and the Chief is a leader, and those two things combined are Azula’s worst nightmare. 

She's tried, she's tried _so hard_ to be perfect, to be the _good_ child, the only one who makes her father _proud_ , because if she doesn't - 

If she doesn't, then she'll become like Zuko, burnt and honourless and undeserving of respect. If Azula isn't perfect, then what earthly thing could stop her father banishing her too? She can't be like Zuko, she _won't_. Azula refuses to let herself be cast aside when she's the only one who can possibly rebuild the Fire Nation to its former glory.

It's treason to even think of that. 

Azula knows this. Azula knows many things, but she doesn't know how to reconcile her father's pride and Zuko's love, and she doesn't know what she'd do if she could.

‘- and I know I'd want to be informed if my children were captured by an enemy,’ the Chief is saying, and Azula comes back to herself with a sting of displeasure at her distraction.

‘Pardon?’

The Chief gives her an odd look, his eyebrows lowering ominously like he's angry at her lack of attention. Azula tries not to visibly flinch.

‘Your family? Would you like to write a note to them that I can enclose in my formal letter?’ 

Azula narrows her eyes, trying to parse out the Chief’s reasoning. His expression is now open and guileless, but Azula knows not to trust what's on the surface. Clearly this is some kind of trick, a trap intended to trip her into revealing her true identity; the Chief must have his suspicions. Azula could kick herself; _of course_ the Chief is suspicious; he's the leader of a crew of Water Tribe committed to the destruction of the Fire Nation. He's probably planning to incarcerate her in some Earth Kingdom prison and bargain for her life. 

That's what Azula would do, in his position.

‘If I may,’ she says, though it pains her to concede the necessity of permission to a Water Tribe peasant.

The Chief nods. ‘Of course.’

Azula inclines her head. It's clearly not as obviously okay as the Chief wants her to believe, but she won't pass up the opportunity to get a message to Mai and Ty Lee, even though he's obviously going to read over it before he sends it.

Honestly. It would almost be funny how he thinks he can trick her if it wasn’t so offensive. If it didn’t make Azula want to run.

The Chief passes a piece of paper over to her, resting his elbows on the desk and leaning forward, likely to intimidate her with his physical advantage. Azula tries not to move back too obviously.

She writes a quick note, nothing to arouse suspicion, but with just enough clues to give Mai and Ty Lee the information they need, trying not to flinch when the Chief reaches for his own quill. 

Azula really needs to get a grip. 

‘Is that all?’ She asks once she's finished, and almost winces at her own tone. There's no need to incense the Chief unnecessarily; she doesn't want to tip his decision in favour of more painful imprisonment techniques if there's still a chance he's undecided.

‘What? Oh, yes. You're free to go,’ the Chief says absently, but Azula knows not to fall for his harmless act.

She all but _flees_ from the cabin. 

*

Apparently, a side effect of the prisoner’s near death experience whilst working is to do _more_ work. 

The crew are (understandably) confused by this.

Aklaq walks past the prisoner stacking crates. By herself. Through what looks to be sheer willpower.

She has a rather bloodcurdlingly murderous expression on her face as she single-handedly lifts supply chests that weigh more than her own body mass.

Aklaq leaves her to it. He has no interest in becoming the prisoner’s latest victim. 

He's cautious like that. 

*

Nanouk, however, isn't. 

‘Look, princess,’ he snaps sharply, storming up to her where she's polishing the brass, ‘If you _ever_ pull a stunt like that again -’

‘I won't,’ the Fire Nation aristocrat says. Nanouk blinks at her, surprised by the neutrality of her tone; it's almost _pleasant_. Of course she then goes and ruins it by saying, ‘ _I_ have no interest in doing your work for you; if _you_ can't manage it, ask someone else.’ 

Unbelievable.

Nanouk glares at her. ‘Just so we're clear, _none_ of this makes you a better person,’ he snaps, gesturing to the deck that bears the marks of her recent cleaning endeavours.

The prisoner glares back at him. 

‘ _Obviously_ ,’ she says, and wow, Nanouk has never had a fourteen year old be condescending to him before. 

He does _not_ like it.

*

The obstreperous sailor Azula punched tries to give her a warning-slash-lecture about moral purity when she's polishing the truly atrociously-kept brass work, and Azula has to stifle the violent urge to melt the metal between her hands and throw it in his face.

She doesn't. Barely.

*

Siku and Pamiuq bring the Fire Nation girl dinner on the deck. 

This might be a mistake, but Siku is willing to risk it to eat anywhere else but the perpetually-tea-scented healer’s cabin. Tui and La, Ukiak’s tea has effectively _burnt_ his olfactory senses forever. He doubts he'll ever recover from such a fatal injury.

The prisoner sits down on the deck with a curl of distaste to her mouth, but Siku can see she's tired, even though she threatens to rip his eyes out when he mentions it.

She's done more in a single day than he's ever done in the entire three years he's been on this ship, and he tells her that cheerfully.

The prisoner sneers. ‘Well, if you weren't such an off-cut from the dregs of society's patriarchal expectations, perhaps you'd be able to compete.’ 

Siku gapes at her. ‘Did you just make a joke? Did it hurt?’

The prisoner cuts a vicious glare at him and tells him to drop dead. Siku thinks it's her way of expressing normal human emotions.

*

After dinner, Anik gets out the playing cards and lays them out on the deck. 

The usual players materialise around him, settling into their places on the worn wooden floor and leaning back against the railing. Anik can see Siku and Pamiuq from his place, and he watches in amusement as Siku tries, like the overgrown koala otter he is, to make friends with the Fire Nation prisoner. Pamiuq is less effusive; he always was the slightly more cautious one of the troublesome two, but Anik can see he's more comfortable around the prisoner than the rest of them. Siku’s friendly overtures are likely to shipwreck, but Anik thinks Pamiuq can deal with that. The boy’s smart; even if he does have questionable taste in friends.

The prisoner says something too low for Anik to hear, but Siku rears back and stares at her in shock before bursting out into excessively loud laughter. The prisoner glares at him and mutters something, but even from this distance Anik can see the faint blush on her face. He smiles to himself; it's good for the younger ones to have _some_ fun; Tui knows there isn't much of it these days. 

He has a small, ominous premonition of what might unfold should the prisoner join Siku and Pamiuq’s duo of mischief, but he dismisses the thought. It's unlikely to happen, and anyway, he thinks they can handle it.

*

The setting sun glints over the horizon, bathing the deck in shades of gold and pink, picking out the rough wood in the lessening light. 

Pamiuq sees Anik setting out the cards and stands up, collecting the plates in preparation for the night's games. Siku takes them down to the galley with muttered grumbling, mumbling something about _societal expectations_ and _oppression of the youth_. Pamiuq thinks he’s been spending a _bit_ too much time with the Fire Nation aristocrat lately. 

‘What _is_ that?’ 

Pamiuq turns to look at the prisoner in shock. That is officially the first non-inflammatory question she’s ever asked him, and by the sour look on her face, she knows it. She gestures towards the men gathering at one side of the deck where Anik is dealing the cards, glaring at him.

‘It’s cards,’ he says, and realises how supremely unhelpful that is when the prisoner shoots him a disparaging glance.

‘I can see that,’ she sneers, as if to make up for her earlier lapse of judgment in initiating a conversation with him. ‘What kind of cards?’

‘Uh…’ Pamiuq doesn’t know. Pamiuq has never actually _asked_ the name of the game they always play; the crew just call it cards, because the crew is composed of fourteen excessively-muscular males with little-to-no imagination. ‘I’ll show you.’

*

The men look up when Azula and the Lesser Idiot approach, suspicion flaring on some of their faces. She tenses, schooling her expression into perfect neutrality, and meets their very obvious scrutiny head-on.

‘Do you know how to play?’ Anik asks. Azula glances at this unexpected support in shock; the man’s face is open, his eyes lacking the hard judgment most of the crew address her with. She almost smiles. 

Almost. 

Then she remembers that she’s Crown Princess Azula of the Fire Nation, and also that she does, in fact, know how to play this particular game, and as such, now has the advantage.

‘No,’ she says. You know, like a liar.

‘Do you want to learn?’

*  
The Fire Nation prisoner wipes the floor with them and wins six rounds in a row.

Nanouk sulks for the rest of the night. 

*

‘Where did you learn to play like that?’ Siku asks, and Azula stiffens.

‘My brother taught me,’ she says shortly, and deals the cards.

It's one of her only good memories of Zuko. Evenings spent in his room growing up, lounging on the fluffy cushions he'd take from his bed and put on the floor for her, watching his thin fingers as he dealt the cards, the bright colours and the delight of pitting her mind against his.

Azula almost always won. She wonders, now, if Zuko hadn't gone easy on her. It would be just like him, she thinks, and refuses to acknowledge the ache that brings. 

*

Hakoda finally, _finally_ finishes the damn letter, and drags himself up to where the messenger hawks are kept, attaching the letter to the appropriately-named Murder Hawk (Siku’s idea. Hakoda does _not_ approve) and watches as she flies off into the sunset. He closes his eyes against the sun, fighting back a yawn as he stretches for the first time in what feels like years, and then turns to step out on deck and stops, staring.

The darkening sky turns the light blue, painting the ship in shades of oceanic darkness, lit by the warm gold of the lamps hanging from the ropes around the deck. There's a circle of men surrounding a pool of light beneath a lantern, sitting cross-legged and talking casually in the gathering darkness. Hakoda sees a few making bets, and steps closer. 

In the centre of the circle, backlit against the yellow glow, the Fire Nation aristocrat considers her cards, sending a sly look at her opponent. Pamiuq takes a look at his own hand and winces visibly, heaving a resigned sigh. The crowd around them groans, a few shaking their heads in disbelief, most teasing him good-naturedly. 

‘Round Fifteen to me,’ the Fire Nation girl says, smirking at him. In the golden half-light, her expression is softer, less harsh; she looks like the young child she really is.

Hakoda stares, and reconsiders, and doesn't know how to reconcile this new, easier version of the prisoner with the girl who flinches when he walks past her.

He watches a moment longer, taking in the laughing faces of his crew, and returns to his cabin.

He has a feeling the deck isn't the right place for him right now.

*

The letter arrives in the morning.

Ty Lee intercepts the note before it reaches the throne room; a well - timed stumble, a light fingered slip that sends her careening merrily into the messenger, and it's done.

Mai slits it open with a swipe of a blade, scanning the rough paper and barely-legible penmanship.

Her gaze snags on the name.

_Ursula Mailee_.

Mai’s lip curls in distaste, but under her armour her heart begins to pound.

‘She's alive,’ Mai says, and Ty Lee smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anik: haha wouldn't it be funny if siku, pamiuq, and the prisoner became friends. totally not going to happen. hilarious. the pranks they would play. oh well, guess it's never going to happen.
> 
> me: you fool. you absolute idiot.


	6. The Enduring Douchebaggery of the Fire Lord

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy new year and all that

Azula rises with the sun; this isn't a new thing.

But, apparently, the Water Tribe rises whenever the hell they want to; the sailors take shifts on deck or on watch duty (Azula has their entire rota memorised and analysed for weak points) but apart from that they do pretty much as they please.

The sun rises, streaming through the porthole above Azula's bed, and she gets up. 

The ship is relatively silent when she goes out on deck, after a hasty breakfast in the galley (she trusts food she prepares herself), and surveys the empty deck.

Anik taught her how to perform a task he called _caulking_ (which Azula was pretty certain wasn't a real word) yesterday, and as she's already mopped the floor to within an inch of its inanimate life, she may as well get started with what looks to be _at least_ a two hour job. 

Azula plans to do it in one.

*

Nanouk comes out on deck, furious, to see the Fire Nation prisoner caulking the deck with militaristic preciseness. 

Not to be outdone, he grabs a caulk and sets to work on the _other_ side of the deck.

*

The paint on Azula’s fingernails is chipped, cracking in spidery lines that weave away down the centre of each nail. Her makeup is long gone, washed away in the waves; her pale skin is turning an infuriating tan under the sun. Her hair is pulled back out of her face in a simple ponytail that swings as she moves, stray hairs escaping and falling into her face. She wears a rough blue shirt she's ninety percent certain comes from Siku and coarsely-spun trousers that quite clearly belong to Pamiuq.

Azula couldn't look less like a princess if she _tried_ , and yet the moronic, obstreperous, interfering, aggravating muscle guy she punched insists on calling her that, like it's not her _official title_ he's butchering in a futile attempt to insult her.

Azula doesn't even _like_ her title. It’s just another facet of her life, another weighted stone designed to drag her down when she’s fighting up, another reminder of her inevitable insignificance in the grand scheme of time. 

_Princess_ , like she isn’t so much more than that. _Princess_ , said with a sneer and a look that says _oh, isn’t she sweet_. 

_Princess_ , said in the same tone as a mocking _little girl_ , and the faces of the war ministers the first time Azula was allowed in the counsel rooms, like they were waiting for a governess to run in and pull her out and save them the indignity of having to _speak_ to her.

_Princess Azula_ , like _Lady Ursa_ , like _lesser_ and _unimportant_ and _gone_.

There’s a reason Azula tries so hard to be perfect. 

Which, now, is why she will _not_ back down when the obnoxious sailor she punched decides to compete against her.

*

Aklaq walks out, sees Nanouk and the girl engaged in some kind of passive aggressive caulking contest, and walks back in again.

He does _not_ want to get caught up in that.

*

Pamiuq, ever the opportunist, starts making bets halfway through.

*

No letter has arrived from the Fire Nation. Hakoda knows they received his, knows that Murder Hawk made it back safely, and yet still there is no response. Something angry curls within him, at this blatant dismissal of his bargain, but at the same time he’s shocked, utterly astounded, that not a single soul in the Fire Nation cares about the life of this young girl - but then, what did he expect? Did he really hope that the Fire Nation would respond? 

The girl is just one nonbender, an aristocrat, nothing special. Of course a nation that sends its people to kill innocents would not care about her. 

Hakoda feels a surge of irrational anger at the thought; why should she be cast aside in the interests of a genocidal maniac? 

He would do _anything_ to protect his children; he’s here, far away from them, leaving his village with only his _son_ to keep them safe, his son, who begged to be allowed to fight, to be a warrior like Hakoda. 

He thinks of his men, tortured in some dark prison somewhere deep within the Fire Nation, thinks of Aaluuq, who never got so see the birth of his youngest child, dying on the deck of a Fire Nation ship, thinks of Siku and Pamiuq and their childhood thrown away in the pursuit of a war no one asked for them to be spared from, Nanouk who still wakes up screaming in the night, Ukiak and his life before, the three years he spent languishing in a Fire Nation cell and the scars he still bears from it.

The Fire Nation has hurt so many of the people Hakoda loves, and now they can't even spare a thought for the life of one of their own. 

And the Fire Nation aristocrat may be a nonbender, but she's clearly smart and a good fighter and a _very_ hard worker - and her family haven't replied to the note she sent.

Hakoda can't fathom why a parent would not move heaven and earth to find their child, but then - 

The Fire Nation raises their children to fight and die in a century-old war that took Hakoda’s family from him. He doesn't think an aristocrat’s family is going to be particularly _loving_.

The thought is unsettling, creeping insidiously in his mind like shifting ground, and he thinks of Sokka, always trying to prove himself, and Katara, her determination to make the world a better place, and wonders what terrible thing could ever make a child afraid of their own parents. 

*

‘You've done a good job on that,’ Hakoda comments, inspecting the textbook perfect knots the Fire Nation girl has tied as he passes. ‘Well done.’

The girl stares at him, eyes narrowed. It's remarkably horrifying to think that she's suspicious of kindness; Hakoda resolves silently to make sure she never has occasion to doubt his sincerity on this ship.

*

The Chief stops where Azula is working, looming over her shoulder and scrutinising the knots she's been tying. Azula tries not to either bristle or flinch under the hard, judgmental weight of his stare. She _knows_ the knots are perfect; she followed Anik’s instructions exactly.

‘You've done a good job on that. Well done,’ the Chief says.

Azula narrows her eyes. Just what game does he think he's playing, trying to lull her into a false sense of security? 

She redoubles her efforts; no need to let the Chief think he's fooled her with his cunning machinations.

*

The prisoner works an extra half hour after Hakoda walks off, on top of the eight she's already worked, til the sun dips low enough over the horizon to make continuing impossible.

He doesn't think positive reinforcement is going to work this time.

*

The evening falls, dusk settling over the water like a benediction, and Anik lays out the cards again.

Azula waits to be invited, sitting with Pamiuq and Siku around the empty plates, half-listening to the long, rambling story Siku is telling (replete with sound effects and heroic embellishments). She rolls her shoulders, feeling a twinge of pain as her muscles protest; turns out caulking is clearly some sort of Water Tribe torture system.

She is still wary of the crew, suspecting that they may be angry at her for always winning the night before; most people usually are, when Azula surprises them. She has been chronically underestimated for half her life; she can't say she's sorry that she proved them wrong. 

Without meaning to, she catches herself thinking of Zuko, of the way he taught her to win and then let her beat him over and over, regardless of his own prowess. Was he truly not as good as she, or was he losing on purpose? 

Azula can’t understand why anyone would lose on purpose without having some kind of strategic gain, but then again Zuko has always been supremely non-tactical. 

Unlike Azula.

‘You coming, princess?’ Pamiuq asks as he gets up, and Azula shoots him a glare. Punch Guy’s truly _ludicrous_ nickname appears to be spreading; she is _not_ pleased about this.

But she gets up anyway, and makes her way over to the group of sailors, taking the place they make room for, shifting to the side easily to make room. It’s odd, the way they rearrange around her like she’s _welcome_ there.

Azula hasn’t felt _welcome_ anywhere in a very long time. 

It’s an odd feeling, one that hides behind her ribs like a shy child, something cracked and warm glowing inside her chest. It makes her almost want to be _kind_ , to stop glaring at everyone she sees, to let someone else win for once.

Clearly there’s something wrong with her.

Azula takes the hand she’s given and considers it, scanning the faces of the other players. Pamiuq has a surprisingly inexpressive face when playing, Siku is worse than an open book, Aklaq is passable, Anik has a large selection of tells that Azula has already memorised; she's going to win again. 

Punch Guy glares at her over the top of his cards. 

Azula glares back.

*

Nanouk does _not_ like the Fire Nation prisoner. 

He thinks that's pretty apparent by now. She's _Fire Nation_ and she's a _prisoner_ ; he's not exactly going to be best friends with her, and he thinks that's perfectly valid of him.

Siku, apparently, doesn't. 

Siku, in fact, wants him to ‘be more nice’ to her. Like a fucking _idiot_. Nanouk is within one badly timed remark of _slaughtering_ the kid, _but_.

But. The kid is alright, he supposes. Still a fucking idiot, but Siku has always been like that, and most importantly, he's _family_. Nanouk would do _anything_ for his family, up to and including actual homicide. 

Being nice to a Fire Nation prisoner? Yeah. He can do that.

Sometimes. 

_Not_ when she's currently kicking his ass at cards with a kind of violent enjoyment that is fucking unsettling to watch, alright, Nanouk is fucking _disturbed_ by this, and apparently _no one else_ is.

Muttering under his breath very maturely, he deals the cards again. 

The Fire Nation girl takes a perfunctory look at hers and then _smiles_. 

It's creepy. Nanouk should not be the only one concerned by this, but apparently the rest of the crew have all gone selectively blind. She's smiling! Like a _psycho_! This is not a drill! 

Nanouk rolls the dice. Fails to get the number he needs. Indulges in a very understandable fit of pique.

The Fire Nation prisoner wins.

_Again_.

*

Hakoda comes out on deck again, leaning against the bulkhead to watch as the Fire Nation girl wins each consecutive game. He wonders if it's a good idea, to let the crew get attached to her like this when he's most likely going to have to pass her off on the Earth Kingdom next chance he gets, but figures it's probably a bit too late now. The crew have been known to bond with inanimate objects before; they've clearly already progressed to _adopting_ the Fire Nation girl. 

Well; all except Nanouk. Hakoda eyes his crew member’s thunderous face and laughs to himself; typical Nanouk, treating the slightest _hint_ of rivalry as permission to run himself ragged trying to outdo everyone else. 

Hakoda doesn't think it'll be a problem. 

*

Azula tenses reflexively when the Chief comes out on deck, forcibly tamping down her instinctual reaction to let her flame out and start blasting. 

‘Your go, princess,’ Aklaq says idly, eyes focused on his cards, and Azula snaps her attention back to the game, annoyed at her distraction.

She plays a few more rounds, but her focus is constantly drawn back to the Chief, every nerve in her body taut with pricking apprehension. She realises that it's nonsensical to have such a marked hypervigilant reaction to his presence when he's quite clearly not paying particular attention to her, but _knowing_ the idiocy of her stupid reflexes doesn't actually help her _stop_ them. 

Azula gets up to leave, faking a yawn. The Chief’s eyes flick towards her and then he looks back at his crew, ignoring her departure. Azula breathes a sigh of relief and nods to Siku and Pamiuq as they say goodnight cheerily, heading towards the stairs.

‘Good night,’ Anik calls after her, and she turns, raising a hand in acknowledgment. She’s surprised by his casual acceptance of her, the kind of unthinking recognition of place that she's never had before. 

It’s - odd. _Unusual_. Azula doesn’t quite know how to deal with it.

*

Azula enters the healer’s cabin, not quite ready to sleep yet, her inner flame still flickering in her chest, and sees Ukiak sitting at the table, a pot of tea steaming in front of him. 

She stops.

‘Oh, hello,’ the healer says, looking up from his scroll. ‘Tea?’

_Why not_ , she thinks, and nods warily. It can’t hurt, and if anything else, she’ll be able to get _some_ information out of the healer.

She used to have tea with Uncle Iroh and Zuko before it all went wrong, back when she was young and incapable of sitting still for a single second. She remembers Uncle’s chuckles at her boundless energy, remembers Zuko’s shy smiles, the way he’d always slip her an extra biscuit and cool her tea for her. 

Remembers how those tea sessions stopped so abruptly when Zuko was banished and Uncle chose him over Azula. 

She takes a seat carefully at the other end of the table, and takes the cup the healer offers her, trying not to breathe in the pungent smell of burnt leaves.

They sip their tea in silence for a while, and then, apparently possessed by the incensed spirit of Uncle Iroh, Azula finds herself opening her mouth to say:

‘I know a trick for making sure the leaves don’t scald.’

The healer looks up in surprise and then smiles, the creases at the corners of his eyes deepening. Azula wonders idly what it must be like to have had so much joy in one’s existence that one’s face adapts to accommodate it. She doesn’t know how that’s even possible.

‘Please, show me,’ he says, gesturing to the pot between them. Azula dumps out the old leaves into the tray and adds new ones, pouring in fresh water from the kettle. She stirs it slowly, cupping the old ceramic pot in one hand and subtly raising the temperature, letting the leaves steep just like Uncle Iroh always did. She’s struck, suddenly, by the memory of him, his white hair and deep voice and the way he used to make her feel _safe_ , for a short time. 

‘Can I ask you a question, Miss Mailee?’ The healer asks suddenly, and Azula tamps down her reflexive flinch, banishing the memories skulking at the edge of her mind. 

‘Of course,’ she replies politely, resisting the urge to point out that he had, in fact, just asked her a question.

‘Do you have any siblings?’

Azula stops stirring.

‘I -’ she pauses, swallowing past the surprise and the sudden knot in her throat. ‘A brother.’

‘I see.’ The healer smiles again, in a way Azula recognises in theory as ‘fatherly’; she herself has never seen a father wear such an expression, so perhaps the books are mistaken. It’s more than likely, all things considered. ‘What is his name, may I ask?’

Azula swallows. ‘Zuzu. His name is Zuzu.’

The nickname sticks in her throat like barbed wire. She hasn’t said that name in years; not since the banishment. Not since before that, if she’s being honest.

(She’s never being honest).

‘Why do you believe in this war?’ The healer asks, and Azula stares at him in shock, setting the teapot down with a sharp click.

‘Because -’ she starts, and stops.

Because - what? Because her father wants her to? Because it is expected of her? Because there is no other option, not for her? Zuko spoke out against just a single division being sent to die and look where that got him; half his face burnt off and an honorless mission to capture a being no one’s seen in a century. If Azula doesn’t believe in the war, her father wouldn’t even give her the semblance of a trial. 

She’d be dead before the words left her mouth. 

So now she stops, and looks away, and fixes her eyes on the sliver of stars in the night sky beyond the porthole, and says, ‘Because Fire Lord Ozai believes it to be necessary to the advancement of the Fire Nation,’ almost by rote, repeating the reasons she’s been given her entire life, the lessons her tutors taught, the tactics the generals preached in the counsel room, the absolute, irrevocable certainty of her father’s righteousness.

‘That’s not what I asked,’ the healer says. Azula thinks his voice really should not be that kind when she’s just told him about why the decimation of his entire culture is a good idea. ‘Why do _you_ believe in this war?’

‘Tell me, what other option do you think I have?’ Azula asks suddenly, voice sharp with ill-concealed irritation and the knowledge that she's revealing too much. ‘You think I can just hypothetically denounce the war my forefathers championed and face no consequences?’

The healer looks at her with something approaching sympathy, or perhaps sadness. 

Azula can never tell the difference.

‘You know, I spent three years in a Fire Nation prison,’ he says, apropos of apparently _nothing_.

Azula stares at him. ‘So you'd understand why any difference in belief would be tantamount to signing one’s own death warrant?’

_I am the Crown Princess of the Fire Nation, heir to the Dragon Throne, youngest firebender to master lightning, and I'm talking to a Water Tribe peasant about betraying my country_ , Azula thinks, and wants to set the ship alight.

She's supposed to be _loyal_. She's supposed to be the _good_ child, the perfect heir, never shirking her responsibilities or her duty, that was _all_ she was raised to do, to protect and uphold the Fire Nation at all costs, and this _peasant_ is making her doubt herself - 

‘I also heard, whilst I was in prison, of a very skilled bender, child of the Fire Lord,’ the healer says carefully, and Azula's spine snaps straight.

‘Did you,’ she says. If she fights him here she'll have to make her way to the lifeboats without alerting the crew; she'll have to blast her way out and count on surprise to overpower the warriors.

‘Yes, I did.’ The healer smiles. Azula calculates angles of attack. ‘I also heard that she was invited into the war rooms at the age of ten - so young.’ He shakes his head, a faraway look in his eyes. ‘She must have been _very_ loyal.’

Azula pauses in her consideration of what food supplies she has to hand.

‘She is,’ she snaps in spite of her better judgment. ‘The Crown Princess has always been loyal to the Fire Nation.’

‘But not to its ruler?’ The healer’s eyes are sharp.

Azula stares at him.

The first time she ever caught herself doubting her father, she was seven years old. Zuko was playing cards with her and she was winning more than usual because his left wrist was broken, slung uselessly in a cast over his chest, dark bruises blooming on his skin. 

_I'm fine, Zula_ , Zuko said with a badly concealed wince when she took his hand and examined it. _It doesn't hurt_.

Azula looked at him and knew he was lying. She knew every fake smile he'd ever pulled, every falsely polite expression he ever wore at those endless dull dinner parties, and she knew that what was under his mask was _fear_. 

Ursa told her not to pester her brother with card games whilst he was healing. Ursa _never_ said that when Azula injured herself in training (which happened less and less every day, because Azula knew how to stop getting hurt even if Zuko didn't). 

Azula obeyed her mother (Azula _always_ obeyed her mother, and yet why did it never make Ursa love her?). Azula let Zuko heal, and watched him flinch whenever Father walked past, and - well. 

Azula wasn't stupid, even at that young age. She knew what that flinch meant, knew that Zuko had angered Father yet again, knew how to avoid that anger herself. 

Sometimes, lying awake at night, she still wishes she had been able to show Zuko how to do the same. 

Azula believes in pragmatism; her mother called it _heartlessness_ , when she was with them. 

Fire Lord Ozai is draining the Fire Nation’s coffers with a war that cannot be won; Azula knows this. She has not admitted it out loud, because she's not an idiot, and if she ever wants to serve her country _right_ , she's going to need to be in a powerful enough position to do so.

A position like the Fire Lord.

‘Fire Lord Ozai can always count on the Crown Princess to do her duty,’ Azula says calmly.

The healer’s eyes twinkle, a phenomenon Azula has not previously witnessed. Uncle Iroh never smiled at her like that, she catches herself thinking before she shoves that thought away irritably.

‘Duty and honour; how you firebenders value them,’ he says, almost to himself, and Azula can't decide if that's an insult or a compliment. ‘Well, I'll say goodnight.’

He gets up to leave, joints creaking with the weight of age and the apparent wisdom that seems to inevitably follow it, and closes the door behind him. 

Azula falls asleep that night and dreams of the throne.

*

Mai kneels before the Dragon Throne and asks permission to rescue the Crown Princess.

Behind a wall of flames, Ozai considers.

‘Let her prove her worth to me,’ the Fire Lord pronounces, and Mai digs her fingers into the cold marble beneath her, her heart sinking.

‘Your Majesty,’ she begins, bowing almost to the floor even though Mai will never show obeisance to this man in her life, ‘I beg your generous leave to prove myself in this endeavour. Ty Lee and I -’

‘Enough,’ the Fire Lord proclaims, and Mai falls silent instantly, biting her tongue. ‘I have made my decision; my daughter should be grateful for the opportunity to prove her worth to me. I have been merciful.’

‘Of course, Your Majesty,’ Mai says, trying not to retch as the words stick in her throat. Behind the curtain of her hair she seethes silently, remembering Azula's face when Zuko was banished, remembers Ursa’s funeral, remembers the screams that echo up to her room from the dungeons, and wants to run Ozai through with her blades.

_Merciful_ , as if he hadn't burnt his own son for daring to speak against him, as if he hadn't sent the 41st Division to die and expected gratitude for the honour of dying for the cause he's forced on them all, as if Mai doesn't know Azula still dreams of the Agni Kai.

She rises to her feet, makes the sign of the flame, and leaves the throne room.

‘Did he -’ Ty Lee starts as she comes out, leaping up from her position on the floor, but a single look at Mai’s face tells her all she needs to know. Her eyes fill with tears. ‘What are we going to do, Mai?’

Mai unsheathes her blades.

‘We're going to get her,’ she says grimly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hakoda: *compliments Azula*
> 
> Azula: tHiS MusT bE sOmE kInD oF pLoT


	7. Azula vs Patriarchy, Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nanouk stop being an idiot challenge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter really didn't want to be written which is weird bc its not even that important plot-wise. and yet it decided to kick my ass, which was frankly rather rude of it.

They arrive at the port in the morning.

Hakoda watches from the helm as the land creeps gradually closer, hastened by the wind filling their sails and the brisk movement of the water beneath them.

It's a regular supply stop, only for a few hours, but he lets the men take off into the town for an hour or too with strict instructions not to get lost.

The prisoner stays behind, barely even looking up from her precise swabbing as the sailors disembark, swinging past her on their way to the gangplank. Siku and Pamiuq stop beside her, Siku rambling on about everything he's going to do, and Hakoda sees the prisoner and Pamiuq exchange a long suffering look over the top of his head.

He grins to himself. He's glad they're friends, although it makes his decision about what to do with her ten times harder.

The Fire Nation has not answered any of Hakoda’s letters, preferring to maintain a cold silence (if they even received them in the first place). That’s a possibility Hakoda holds to, when he thinks of the girl’s family _knowing_ she’s been captured and doing nothing to save her. 

Anik and Aklaq are busy preparing the sails, taking advantage of the port stop to patch up the tears that inevitably crop up in the fabric. They're out on deck, the sail stretched out in front of them, when the prisoner completes her swabbing, which appears to have taken her half the time it would for a normal sailor.

Hakoda can't deny he's impressed. 

As he watches, she glances about the deck, clearly casting around for another job to do, and her gaze lands on Anik and Aklaq.

‘Can you show me?’ She asks, rather more forcefully than strictly necessary, and Anik grins, gesturing for her to sit down.

Hakoda smiles, turning away.

*

‘Shouldn't you already know how to do that?’ Anik asks, pointing his needle at Azula's line of stitches in what is most definitely _not_ a demonstration of correct safety procedures. 

‘Why would I know how to sew?’ Azula says, jabbing her needle through the fabric.

Anik shrugs. ‘Because you're a girl.’

Azula sets down her needle with a sharp click. 

‘What does _that_ have to do with my ability to _sew_?’ 

Aklaq’s eyes widen and then he sighs, bringing a hand up to scrub over his face. ‘Anik. I don't think girls in the Fire Nation do the same things as Water Tribe girls.’

‘ _Ohhh_ ,’ Anik says. 

It seems to help.

Azula eyes him as she picks up her needle and carries on sewing, making precise stitches in a neat line along a tear, which she's aware isn't exactly helping her case here.

‘So if you didn't learn sewing,’ Anik asks, rethreading his needle yet again, ‘What _did_ you learn?’

‘Fighting,’ Azula replies automatically.

They stare at her.

Ah. So _that's_ another thing girls don't do in the Water Tribe.

Figures.

‘ _You_ know how to fight?’ Aklaq says disbelievingly, and Azula bristles.

‘Obviously,’ she snaps. ‘What else was I supposed to do?’

‘Uh, _sew_ ,’ Anik suggests.

‘Cook.’

‘Make clothes.’

‘Do the laundry.’

‘Cook.’

‘Heal the sick.’

‘Cook.’

‘ _Okay_ , Anik, we get it, you like food -’

‘Well, I'm just _saying_ -’

‘I know how to fight,’ Azula interrupts, glaring at them, ‘and I know how to talk, and I know how to do both of those things _very well_.’

‘Oh, yeah?’ Aklaq says, raising an eyebrow.

‘Bet you can't do it better than a _warrior_ ,’ Anik says slyly, and Azula tilts her head to one side.

‘You sure about that?’

He exchanges a glance with Aklaq, who shakes his head disbelievingly. ‘Uh, _yeah_.’

Azula stands up.

‘Then you'd better get ready.’

*

Pamiuq spends the entirety of the trip into the town arguing with Siku about what exactly constitutes a correct gift to get the prisoner.

Siku’s idea. 

Obviously.

Pamiuq would never suggest something so fraught with potential pitfalls and traps. 

‘We should get her a necklace,’ he says.

*

Nanouk comes back from the port town to find the deck currently occupied by what looks to be a brawl.

Yeah.

Nanouk stares.

The prisoner and Anik are fighting. On deck.

In _unison_.

‘You're favouring your left shoulder,’ the Fire Nation prisoner says, seemingly not out of breath even though she's currently _decimating_ Anik with the same weirdly powerful punches she'd used to completely disfigure Nanouk’s face (okay, maybe not _disfigure_ , but close enough).

Anik grunts in response, shifting his stance as he hurls a punch that even _Nanouk_ can see is never going to hit the girl, who dodges out of the way with all the ease of a hawk flamingo. 

The Fire Nation prisoner ducks under his outstretched arm and punches his stomach in a _clear_ demonstration of ashmaker dirty tactics, and Anik doubles over, clutching his abdomen.

‘Pretty sure that's against the rules,’ he groans, and the prisoner tilts her head to one side, considering.

‘Aklaq?’ She says, looking over to where he’s propped up by the railing, watching the proceedings with an amused glint in his eyes.

‘Nothing in the rules against it,’ Aklaq concludes, and Nanouk decides he must be having an extremely scary dream where his two best friends _actively encourage the Fire Nation prisoner’s aggressive behaviours._

‘Can someone _please_ explain what the fuck is going on?’ Nanouk says, more than a little justifiably incensed, and the prisoner flicks him an irritated glance.

‘We're sparring,’ she says, the _obviously_ going unsaid but quite clearly there. 

Nanouk’s mouth opens before his occasionally situationally-absent better judgment can stop him.

‘But you're a _girl_ ,’ he bleats incredulously.

The prisoner’s eyes narrow dangerously. Behind her, Aklaq stifles a smirk and Anik backs away quietly.

Nanouk has the burgeoning sense of impending doom that tells him he may have just royally fucked up.

‘By all means,’ the Fire Nation prisoner says, her lips curving in a polite smile that doesn't reach her eyes. ‘Enlighten me as to how that poses an obstacle to my ability to fight.’

‘Because you're - weaker?’ Nanouk says, and wracks his brains for _anything else_ to say. He comes up empty; dimly, he's aware that that's probably a warning from the spirits to backpedal for his life and never mention this ever again, but.

Nanouk isn't exactly on speaking terms with the spirits right now.

Or common sense.

So, really, there's only one thing he can do when the prisoner smiles, and raises her hands, and says, ‘Are you sure?’

Nanouk fights.

*

(Nanouk loses.

Rather disastrously.

There's a whooshing sound and a fist connecting with his face and then he can see the blue sky above him as he lies flat on his back on the deck, knocked out by the Fire Nation prisoner for the _second time_.)

*

‘If we get her a pendant, she’ll be able to wear it more often -’

‘If we get her a _bracelet_ , she won’t kill us!’

‘You don’t _know_ that!’

‘Uh, excuse me?’ The store assistant stares at them, eyes wide. ‘Do you require any assistance?’

Pamiuq smiles through gritted teeth. ‘We’ll be alright, thank you. Won’t we?’ He stares pointedly at Siku, who glares back but manages a visibly faked nod.

‘O...kay,’ the store assistant says, turning away. She shoots them a weirded-out glance over her shoulder as she leaves and Pamiuq sighs.

‘Now she thinks we're crazy,’ he says, irritably. 

Siku nudges him. ‘Nah, pretty sure she just thinks _you're_ crazy, because we should _definitely get the bracelet._ ’

‘A necklace is _simpler_ -’ 

*

‘Why _do_ you know how to fight?’ Anik asks, when they've finally settled back down to repair the sail.

Azula doesn’t bother tensing. Her muscles are pleasantly worn out, the knuckles of her right hand already starting to bruise.

Across the deck, propped up against the railing as Ukiak loudly berates his stupidity, there's a matching imprint on Nanouk’s face.

Azula smiles to herself.

‘Everyone knows how to fight in the Fire Nation,’ she says. ‘It's why we kick your asses so much.’

Anik snorts. ‘Careful, princess, that's fighting talk,’ he says, looking supremely smug at his pun.

Aklaq groans. ‘Don't quit your day job, Nik.’

‘What, and rob the world of his spectacular comedic genius?’ Azula says, raising an eyebrow. ‘I'm surprised at you.’

Siku and Pamiuq choose that moment to arrive back in a burst of loud laughter and irritating cheerfulness, hopping onto the ship with all the grace of two koala otters in their excitement. 

Azula rolls her eyes and catches Aklaq doing the same; they exchange a long suffering, dryly amused glance and then resign themselves to the inevitable.

‘We got something -’ Siku starts to say, but Pamiuq elbows him in the side, shaking his head and mouthing a very obvious _not now_ at him in an attempt to be covert. 

Azula raises a supremely unimpressed eyebrow.

They drag her off to the healer’s cabin under the flimsy pretence of needing to show her something, which, _honestly_. Even _Zuko_ could do better than that. 

Once there, they produce a small box and hand it to her, looking equal parts nervous and afraid. 

Azula takes the box warily, eyeing it suspiciously as she opens it. If this is a trick, she's going to _kill_ them.

Inside is a small silver pendant in the shape of a wave, or perhaps a flame, curling over in a tiny cascade, strung on a silver chain that doubles back on itself to form a delicate clasp in the form of a shell.

Azula stares at it.

A flock of birds seems to have taken flight in her chest, fluttering against her ribcage in erratic brushes.

The last necklace she wore was her mother’s. Sometimes, when she was bored (she was _always_ bored), she’d sneak into her mother’s rooms and take out her jewellry box, fingering each of the majestic gold headpieces and the simpler rose-coloured pins Ursa loved so much. Her favourite had always been a silver necklace, shaped like flames licking up the delicate links of the chain they hung from. Ursa hadn't let her wear it, but when she was gone Azula used to borrow it for dinner parties and diplomatic functions. 

It served a purpose. This - _this_ Azula has no idea what to do with. 

‘ _I_ wanted to go for the bracelet, but -’

‘Shut up, Siku -’

‘I'm just _saying_ -’

‘Trust me, _no one_ wants to hear what you're ‘just saying’ -’

Azula clears her throat, ostensibly to get their attention but also to dislodge the uncomfortable knot that appears to have taken up residence in her throat. 

‘What is this?’ She asks.

‘It's a gift,’ Pamiuq says, just slightly on the edge of nervous. 

‘But why would you give me a gift?’ Azula asks, puzzled. 

Siku gapes at her.

‘Because you're our _friend_ ,’ he says.

Azula tries and fails to keep the shock off her face.

‘I - _am_?’

Siku’s face crumples. ‘I’m going to give you a hug now, because you do _not_ have enough positive affection in your life.’

‘You are _not_ ,’ Azula says warningly. The last person who hugged her was her brother. The last person who _tried_ was Ty Lee.

‘Oh, _okay_ , then,’ Siku whines, but Azula can tell he’s joking. ‘So, are you gonna keep it?’

Azula stares at the necklace in her hands.

‘You don’t _have_ to -’ Pamiuq starts.

‘Back off, I’m going to wear it forever,’ Azula snaps, already unclipping the clasp and slinging the chain around her neck, connecting the ends with a sharp _click_.

Siku’s answering grin is so bright Azula’s sure it damages her eyes in some irreversible and deadly way.

She still smiles back, though.

*

Azula is in a good mood when she goes to the healer’s cabin that night.

It's become something of an evening ritual. Azula will beat the crew at cards for an hour or so, and then have tea she brews herself with Ukiak.

After the first time, they don't talk about the war. Azula assumes it's a sensitive topic for both of them; instead, they talk about whatever takes their interest. 

Tonight, surprisingly, it's theatre. 

‘I saw that play while I was there, before I was imprisoned,’ Ukiak says, stroking his bushy beard that rivals Uncle Iroh’s. ‘Terrible performers, but the play itself was quite good.’

‘That's because _Love Amongst the Dragons_ is a classic,’ Azula says, taking a sip of her perfectly brewed tea.

‘Is it widely known?’

‘Not so much these days, but it used to be. My brother and I made a point of going to see it at least once a year.’ Azula lets herself smile at the memory; she and Zuko on Ember Island, making sure not to use their titles when they got the tickets, sitting in the darkened theatre watching with rapt attention as the players butchered the play. Zuko would get irritated by the inaccuracies, but Azula loved it, over-the-top as it was.

Ukiak smiles. ‘That sounds lovely. Is your brother interested in the theatre as well?’

Azula's smile slips. 

‘He was,’ she says, fixing her gaze on the opposite wall. It's foolish to miss whatever tells she could pick up from Ukiak’s expression, but Azula finds herself strangely unwilling to watch it take place. 

‘I'm sorry,’ Ukiak says. ‘What happened to him, may I ask?’

‘He left - was _made_ to leave,’ Azula says, swallowing. The words hurt more than she thinks they should, all things considered. ‘He - displeased our father.’

‘And so your father sent him away?’

Azula nods, keeping her eyes focused on the cracked ceramic of the teapot in front of her, the reddish colour of the clay and the polished sheen of the surface.

‘That must have been very hard for you,’ Ukiak says, and Azula's head spins.

The healer’s expression is open, honest, without hidden meaning or deceit, and Azula stares at him, utterly unmoored.

‘I think it was harder for him,’ she says, and her voice comes out sharper than she'd intended it to, but the healer doesn't take offence.

‘Perhaps,’ he concedes, folding his hands on the table. ‘But nonetheless, my young friend, his pain does not invalidate yours.’

Azula stares.

The Agni Kai had been sudden, unexpected. A meeting behind closed doors and then the announcement, then the crowd, the dueling ring and the sand under the hot sun. 

Then the throne room. Marble floor and the raised throne and her father's fist of flames and Zuko's pleading voice and the stench of burning flesh that Azula can _never_ rid her dreams of no matter how hard she tries.

She hadn't looked away. She hadn't been able to. She hadn't considered it even a possibility, to avoid this duty. 

_No, please, don’t - Father, I am your loyal son, I won’t do it again I won’t do anything I won’t please don’t Father_ please -

Azula can remember the exact sound Zuko made when their father first pressed his fire to his face; the precise volume, the clear shape of the noise and the pain it held, the desperation in his voice and her heartbeat, pounding in her chest like an animal begging to be let out of its cage, a wild thing in her roused by the innate sense of _this is my family_ and the way her hands ached with the unbearable urge to _help him_ , to stop the fire and the screams and the smell of burning flesh and _no one with honour could ever inflict such agony on their own child_ -

Azula can remember every detail of the Agni Kai, down to the heat of the throne room and the spidery cracks in the wooden railing gallery where she’d dug her fingers in so hard the wood splintered.

She thinks Zuko will have forgotten most of it, pushed it away and locked it down deep inside him until he can bear to remember it. She hopes he has.

It’s more than she’s been able to.

‘He burnt him,’ she says, and her voice is barely a whisper.

Ukiak waits.

‘I was there and I watched him do it. I watched and I did _nothing_.’

Ukiak makes a soft noise. ‘You couldn’t; no one could expect you to stop it, your father was older and more powerful and you were _young_ -’

‘He was my brother, and I let him burn,’ Azula says, and this time her voice is strong. ‘He was disloyal and disobedient and foolish; I was none of those things.’

‘You were his sister,’ the healer says quietly, and Azula is in tears before she can comprehend the words.

She hasn’t cried for years. Not since Zuko was banished, not since Ursa disappeared, not since she was named Crown Princess. The situation, as it was, did not allow her the courtesy of emotion; she was the heir. She had to be perfect. 

Zuko wasn’t, and look where that got him.

Azula would rather die than lose her honour like he did; and yet here, about to have a breakdown in front of a Water Tribe peasant, she can't say she particularly cares anymore. 

She swipes the tears away from her eyes before they can fall. Even if she is not exactly in her right mind at the moment, there are some indignities even she will not allow.

‘I _was_ his sister,’ Azula says, calmly enough for the maelstrom currently whirling inside her. ‘I doubt he'd consider me that now.’

Ukiak smiles. ‘I think you'd be surprised, Miss Mailee, at the capacity for forgiveness the human heart has.’

The false name brings her up short. For a moment there she'd forgotten what she was doing here, who she was talking to, what price she would pay if she was found out. 

This is madness, talking to a peasant - one of the _enemy_ \- as an equal, as if there's a single shred of doubt that Azula's brother must hate her for everything she's done, even though she's done it all to set him straight. 

When Zuko realises he's wrong, Azula will be there. They'll sort it out, together; Azula as Fire Lord, Zuko as her advisor. They'll fix the problems their father created, right the wrongs, correct the Fire Nation’s path, because Azula loves her country above all else and her brother above her country. 

Even if she has never actually _told_ him that. But Azula thinks it'll be alright, if only Zuko would stop listening to Uncle Iroh and remember his duty. 

_She_ has certainly never forgotten hers.

*

Commandeering a ship is easier than Ty Lee expects.

Mai doesn’t even have to flash her blades; the captain is too well aware of Azula’s power, and by extension the power her companions wield, to dare question them.

They steam out of port in the dead of night; it’s not unusual for a ship to leave in darkness. The Fire Nation is, after all, at war.

In spite of Azula’s best efforts.

Ty Lee has spent her entire life being underestimated; she’s capitalised on the fact of her innocent face and sweet smile many times before; growing up with Azula has taught her to use whatever assets she possesses wisely.

But this feels different.

‘I would hope so,’ Mai says drily when Ty Lee mentions this to her. ‘We’ve never committed treason before.’

‘I _know_ , but don’t you get the feeling that this is _special_?’ Ty Lee says earnestly.

Mai yawns. ‘Not really.’

Ty Lee tries again. ‘No, I mean like it’s _fated_.’

Mai flicks her a bored glance. ‘I don’t believe in fate.’

‘But do you believe this is _right_?’ Ty Lee presses.

‘I believe it’s the only thing we can do,’ Mai says, and they watch as the lights of Caldera City disappear into the blackness behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ukiak: I am going to create a tea-session that is so therapeutic.
> 
> Azula, through gritted teeth: i aM nOt faLLiNg fOr tHiS


	8. unraveling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It all goes wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi yes hello im back three weeks late i'm SORRY things got busy and life intervened and this chapter was very difficult to write for reasons that are about to become apparent - HOWEVER. it is twice as long as usual, so hopefully that makes up for it a little?
> 
> Warnings in the end note - this chapter gets a bit more graphic than the others

Aklaq sees a ship flying red flags on the horizon the next morning.

The crew prepares for war.

*

Azula is kept in the healer’s cabin; a Fire Nation prisoner and a Fire Nation warship are considered too volatile a mixture even for the Water Tribe with their well-documented tendency to underestimate her. 

Ukiak keeps her company; he isn't needed on deck. (Yet). It's a flimsy excuse and they both know it, but tacitly agree to continue the charade.

‘More tea?’ Ukiak offers, as the sounds of the crew sharpening their weapons reach them from above.

Azula takes the refilled cup and sips it to the clanking of the men readying the ship for war, and plans.

If she times it right, she can slip onto the Fire Nation ship in the chaos of the battle and stowaway until such time as she can reveal herself.

The Fire Nation crew will need convincing of her identity; that may take a bit of wrangling, but Azula is sure blue fire is not so common that they won't recognise it. She’ll be on her way to Caldera City in a few short hours; longer, if the crew proves difficult.

She'll be on her way _home._

The thought feels strange, like a disconnect in her mind. Home, the Palace, her father. 

Home, for so long, had been a facade. A falsehood, told to the young to ensure they remained fearful and naive, a way of enclosing them in a cocoon of lies until they no longer know which monster is most to be feared; the one beyond, or the one within.

Azula has known for a very long time that it doesn't matter where she is; the same fears will follow her across the globe.

They're simple fears, really. Losing her fire, losing her honour, Father’s disappointment, Zuko dying. Simple things, easy to overcome and avoid for most people, and yet she cannot shake them.

If she loses her fire, she loses her honour. If she loses her honour, she loses her father's pride. If she loses that, she will never be able to set Zuko back on the right path. They'll be alone, and they won't even have each other this time.

The Fire Nation will fall, and Azula will not be able to stop it. 

Zuko dying is the one sentimental fear she allows herself; his death is no more or less likely than its always been, but still. She would like to avoid it if at all possible.

The Water Tribe will be a memory by tomorrow. And won't they, after all, be relieved that she's gone? She’s their only bargaining chip, yes, but she also has to be constantly guarded and watched, kept away from the lifeboats, and most of all - she’s _Fire Nation_ , the enemy, and they have to feed her and keep her warm and safe and share their limited supplies with her, however odd those supplies are. They may regret the loss of their only advantage, but Azula won’t fool herself into believing they won’t be glad she’s gone.

She's aware that it's unlikely that the Water Tribe men will survive this battle; not when her soldiers fight with fire. She'll be merciful, however. 

She'll force their surrender, if necessary, but only if all else fails. She's not in the mood to tolerate the senseless killing of men, even those who fight against her country, but if it is required she will do it. 

That's always been the difference between her and Zuko, Azula thinks idly, watching the ship in the porthole come closer and closer. She can see the necessity of pain, the value of each and every sacrifice, but Zuko is sentimental and naive and still doesn't know when to cut his losses.

Azula is surprised, really, that it took so long for him to turn against the Fire Nation. She'd felt sure that after the loss of his honour, he'd hurtle into hating the Fire Nation and all it stood for; instead, he'd become the fanatic kind of loyal that he should have been all along. 

But then Zuko has always been blind, blinkered to the faults of others and his own innate power to choose his own path. Azula never had that choice. Azula was never given a ship and a crew and sent out into the wide world to make something of herself.

It's foolish, she knows, to be jealous of Zuko. He has no honour and even less sense, and Father banished him for a _reason_. He spoke out like an _idiot_ , without waiting to think or reconsider, just stood up and challenged a general like that wasn't a _guaranteed_ way of getting himself killed. He _knew_ Father just wanted an excuse to get rid of him; Azula made sure that he knew, that's what she's been _doing_ for all these years. 

Up above, Nanouk swears harshly. There's the muffled sound of Chief Hakoda barking orders, and then the deck goes silent with a prickling, electric tension that permeates the entire ship.

Azula glances at Ukiak, sitting with his tea and his healing scroll and not bothering to look up, seemingly impervious to the fact that his ship is about to erupt into battle around him.

Azula envies his calm.

There's a shifting groan, a creak from the ship’s beams as if the very wood recognises the stillness of the deck and knows what it will bring.

Azula swallows past a sudden rush of nausea, dread coating her insides like black tar, something churning in her stomach at the thought of what is about to happen. 

Ukiak lays down his scroll.

Above them, there's the unmistakable sound of a Fire Nation voice, perfectly modulated and formed to give the exact information necessary and nothing more, calling for the Water Tribe’s immediate and unconditional surrender.

And then all hell breaks loose.

*

Ukiak doesn't stay still for long.

Aklaq appears in the doorway, a man slung over his shoulder, and Ukiak is already moving, helping him lay the sailor down on the table and reaching for his tools.

Azula stands, useless, and watches as he cuts the man’s incinerated shirt off, exposing the ghastly burn stretching across his chest. The path the fire took is clear to see, the lacerations it left in its wake like fish-hooks in Azula's own ribcage, and all she can think is _this is what he did to Zuko whilst I did nothing._

She dismisses the thought. It's a distraction, and she needs her mind clear now. 

Ukiak turns away, facing the wounded man with his back to Azula, and she takes advantage of his averted gaze to slip out of the door and down the corridor.

She doesn't think about how leaving him alone and undefended makes something churn inside her chest, just like she isn't thinking about how if he is attacked there will be no one to protect him, because he's _Water Tribe_ and she's _Fire Nation_ and she is not responsible for his continued existence, however much the thought of his death causes her bodily pain. 

She doesn't think about any of that, because Azula is the Crown Princess of the Fire Nation and a ship from her father's navy is a few metres away and all she has to do is step onto it to be _safe_.

She darts up the stairs.

*

Azula steps out onto the deck and for a debilitating moment doesn’t know where she is.

She can’t see past a few yards, the deck engulfed in smoke that drags at her lungs and coats her mouth in the acrid taste of burning as she breathes. 

She doesn't know where the other ship is. Men in red and blue stumble past her, swords flashing with the reflected orange of the flames lashing out across the air.

There are men fighting around her, their swords slashing close to her skin as she runs, trying to figure out which way the other ship is. The acrid taste of smoke coats her tongue. She can't see further than a few yards, moving near blind through the dirt grey smog.

A man stumbles past Azula and falls clumsily to his knees. She doesn't know why he's holding a spear so strangely until she sees that it's buried through his chest, blood spurting from the jagged edges of the wound around the spear. 

She can hear her heartbeat pounding in her ears.

A Fire Nation soldier lunges towards her, the flames in his hand harsh after so long without seeing any, and Azula freezes.

A hand grabs her and wrenches her down behind a pile of crates.

She looks up into Nanouk’s furious face.

‘What the fuck are you doing?’ He yells at her, wild-eyed. ‘You could have got yourself _killed_!’

He casts a quick glance over the top of the crates and turns to glare at her.

‘Stay _here!_ ’ He tells her angrily, before she can inform him that she may indeed have had more battle experience than he has, and lunges out again, swinging his axe in a deadly arc as he moves.

Azula adjusts her position; it's not a bad vantage point, even though she assumes Nanouk’s reasons for placing her there were less protective and more pragmatic; if she dies, the Water Tribe loses its bargaining chip.

Azula sets her gaze on the Fire Nation ship, drawn across so its sides drag against the Water Tribe ship, flame-bearing soldiers leaping onto the deck to be met with spears and swords and the raw unbridled _rage_ of the crew. 

Azula runs along the deck, slipping on the wooden planks wet with blood. Her foot catches on something and she trips, pain sparking in her temples as she hits her head hard against a bulkhead. She rights herself, gripping the railing to draw herself up and looks behind her at what tripped her up. 

Her foot had caught on a body. Red insignia. Red uniform. Red blood, spreading in a sticky, glutinous pool on the deck, already clotting and seeping in between the cracks of wood in the boards. 

Azula stares, heart pounding in her ears, at the thin smear of blood on her hands from where she caught herself on the deck, and swallows again the sudden, stupid rush of nausea.

 _It's only blood_ , she tells herself furiously, angry at her own unnecessary reaction. She wipes her hands on her shirt, steadfastly ignoring the way the dark red stands out against the rough blue of the fabric, and pushes herself up on shaky muscles.

The Fire Nation ship is one of their smaller models, Azula notes as she stumbles along beside the railing. In poor condition, too; the metal is rusting, the design at least fifteen years old, the engines likely about four upgrades behind. The sea is a stern master; La does not bend to the will of the humans who dare to traverse his waves. The ship bears the damage of too many years on the unforgiving ocean.

It’ll work, for Azula's purposes.

It _has_ to.

She bolts to the helm, where the fighting is less thick, and creeps along beside the railing until she's level with the other ship. She climbs over the side, hanging by one hand as she reaches out for the Fire Nation ship and swings herself forward and lets go of the Water Tribe and -

\- lands, off-kilter, and feels metal beneath her feet for the first time in weeks.

For a moment, absurdly, all she can think is that Siku and Pamiuq wasted their money on that necklace she's still wearing. 

She's _safe_.

And it was remarkably easy to perform, which strikes her as rather odd.

A soldier runs past her, turning to look back over his shoulder as he runs. His eyes widen and narrow as he takes in her blue clothes and he's shooting a stream of bright orange at her and Azula defects automatically in a brilliant burst of blue and -

The soldier's flame sputters in his hand, guttering like a candle in the wind.

‘What -’ he says, and Azula doesn't have time to reply because a hand grabs her shoulder and someone pulls her back and pins her arms to her sides as she kicks out on instinct, like a wild thing, like the opposite of a princess, fighting against the hold crushing her ribs and the hand clamped over her mouth.

‘Must be a traitor,’ a voice says, cold and harsh and unforgiving. Azula digs her elbows backwards, fighting to get her feet on the floor to flip the man over but his hold is too tight, dragging her up into the air.

The other soldier grabs a length of rough rope, advancing and pulling Azula's hands together as he starts to tie them together. Azula snarls at him.

‘Stow her somewhere until we can deal with her -’ the man starts to say, and there's a loud crack and a jarring shock wracks his frame and he's out cold on the deck before Azula can process what's happening. Blood trickles from a deep gash in his head.

Nanouk tosses his axe into his other hand. ‘Come on, princess.’

The other soldier halts, eyes wide with shock, and Azula takes ruthless advantage of the pause to rip her hands free of the bonds and punch his jaw, her fist connecting with his face with a satisfying crunch. His head flies backwards and he falls to the floor, and Azula doesn't know whether to be flattered or incensed by the clear weakness of her soldiers.

Nanouk raises an eyebrow. 

Azula rubs her bruised arms, chest heaving in spite of her attempts to regulate her breathing, as though she hasn't trained her entire life for battle, and stares at him, willing to risk being captured again to inform him that she had the situation perfectly under control, thank you _very much_ , but Nanouk just raises his other eyebrow.

‘Thank you,’ she says, stiffly. It may cause her physical pain to say the words, but _Azula_ at least was raised with _manners_.

Nanouk looks like he doesn't know whether to be pleased or annoyed.

‘Next time,’ he tells her, choosing annoyed, ‘wait until we've cleared the deck before doing your little escape stunt.’

Azula glares at him, but follows him towards the Water Tribe ship. Her chances of escape are now pretty much null and void; even if she did manage to get the crew to believe her, the Fire Nation soldiers are losing steadily, their numbers that of a skeleton crew if Azula's being impartial. They seem oddly weakened, tiring quicker than the Water Tribe men and taking more hits, despite their bending advantage.

Around them, the fighting has died down abruptly, the Fire Nation deck littered with bodies that bear the red insignia of the military. Nanouk leads her past them and Azula tamps down the sudden, visceral urge to throw up.

These are her _countrymen_.

She can't think of that now, not yet. Not _ever_ , if she wants to keep a clear head.

Azula follows Nanouk to the side, climbing onto the rail as he jumps and lands heavily on the other deck. She steadies herself, takes one last look at the red flags flying high above her on the mast, and leaps forward.

So much for her escape.

The Chief is directing - something, on the deck. Cleaning, perhaps, or removing the bodies. There’s so much blood. Azula is sure it can't all be from the Fire Nation, but none of the Water Tribe crew seem - well.

Dead.

Ukiak is tending to the wounded, but there are no fatalities that Azula can see. 

Azula frowns, trying to place why the Fire Nation crew had been so small and ill-equipped. The ship is small, yes, but under normal circumstances the Fire Nation should have had the advantage; there were definitely firebenders aboard that ship, clearly trained (if not particularly _well_ ). 

She dismisses the thought; she needs to ensure the Chief doesn't notice her presence, even assuming Nanouk doesn't inform him of her attempted escape.

Pamiuq pauses as he unhooks his axe from the wood by the body of a Fire Nation lieutenant, catching sight of Azula.

‘Hey, do you think Siku will finally admit I'm the better fighter now?’ He says, smiling widely as he looks up at her and there's a flash of movement beneath him and the Fire Nation lieutenant isn't dead, isn't unconscious, is _moving_ , taking ruthless advantage of the split-second of distraction to drive his fist up and into Pamiuq’s chest in a burst of white hot fire - 

Azula shoots lightning.

It happens in slow-motion, to her mind.

There's a sound like a storm breaking in her soul and then her inner flame erupts into a surge of burning blue and electricity is crackling at her fingertips and then it's in the lieutenant’s chest and Azula pushes further into his heart and thinks of honour and feels it stop.

The lieutenant collapses in a crumpled pile of red.

Azula stares at him, poised to strike. Frozen. Waiting for him to move, to get up, to reach for his fire and hurl it at Pamiuq - at her _friend_ , Azula’s, _hers_.

The lieutenant doesn't move.

Slowly, like sparks from a campfire, the buzzing in Azula's ears recedes to filter in the noise from the rest of the deck.

Azula inhales once, twice, filling her lungs with smoke and choking on that smell, again, the one that haunts her, except this time _she's_ the cause of it.

Azula meets the Chief’s horrified gaze across the deck and her blood runs cold, ice filling her veins where electricity still lingers like the leftovers of all her worst intentions.

His eyes flick between her hand, still crackling with excess sparks, and the body that lies on the deck because of her hand. 

She can see it in his eyes, the realisation that he's been lied to. That she has betrayed his trust in her honesty, that he has allowed a _firebender_ to live on his own ship without retribution.

She knows, like she's always known everything, that she has very little chance of surviving past this. 

*

_She's a bender_ , Hakoda thinks dimly over the rushing in his ears.

And then - 

_She lied._

All this time, all the concessions and advantages and grudging trust they've been giving her, all the guilt he's felt over using a child as a bargaining chip, all the card games and sailing lessons from Anik - and, _Agni_ , all the edges he'd thought they'd begun to smooth out, the sharp knife of her mistrust of them worn down by Siku’s cheerful affection and Pamiuq’s simple, unfiltered _trust_ \- all of that, and she's been lying to them.

Looked Hakoda in the eye and lied _straight_ to his face, without qualm or misgivings, like the Fire Nation always does, always _has_ done; always will.

Around him, his crew is frozen in varying positions of shock, Anik - thank Tui - still keeping a watchful eye on the prisoners, Aklaq standing guard beside him, but Nanouk -

Nanouk looks like he wants to rip someone's head off as he stares at the girl, and Hakoda abruptly remembers that he's the damn _Chief_ and he needs to put away his own inner turmoil and actually _take charge_.

Before he can do anything, Pamiuq looks up from where he's bent over on the deck ( _where's Ukiak when you need him_ , Hakoda thinks with a sudden rush of bitterness) and staggers forward, skidding to an unsteady stop in front of the girl.

*

It's Pamiuq, surprisingly, or perhaps not, who goes to her first.

‘Hey,’ he says, on his knees beside her, his voice soft with concern. ‘It's alright, you’re alright, everyone's fine.’

The front of his shirt is scorched, still smoking. Azula didn't even manage to stop him from being burned. 

She laughs at that, a cracked, horrible sound that tears at her throat.

The men flinch.

In a ship made of wood, Azula had somehow managed to splinter more thoroughly than any of the debris around her.

‘Come on,’ Pamiuq tells her, and he gives her a smile like she hasn't just killed someone in front of him _Agni she's just killed someone she's just killed someone she's just killed -_

*

‘Come on,’ Pamiuq tells her, and he can't feel the sting of the burn on his chest even though he knows it's there, right over his heart where the flames had touched his skin before Ursula had...bent lightning to save his life.

He shoves that thought away to have a breakdown over later, because Ursula is currently having a breakdown in front of him.

‘You’re alright, everyone’s fine,’ he keeps telling her, even though pretty much nothing about this whole situation is _alright_ , and she clearly doesn’t believe him, if she’s even listening at all, drawing in these scraped-raw, harsh breaths that hurt Pamiuq’s lungs to even _hear_ , and the worst thing - the most painful thing, far greater than the throbbing over his heart and the panic still coursing in his veins - is that she’s trying _so hard_ to stop her own reaction but she _can’t_.

‘We’re going to be fine,’ he tells her, and she’s shaking so hard he’s sure she can’t hear him but he says it anyway, to her, to the crew standing shell-shocked around them, to himself.

 _We’re going to be fine._

*

Pamiuq clearly isn’t fine.

Ukiak could strangle the boy himself; his shirt is still smoking, for La’s sake, what is the idiot _thinking?_

He pushes past Hakoda, frozen in place rather uselessly, and gets a hand under Pamiuq’s arm just as he starts to collapse again, conveniently blocking Ursula from the rest of the crew; better safe than sorry, and from what he’s seen of her, she would rather die than show weakness in front of them. 

Ukiak curses every Fire Nation name he can think of, and props Pamiuq up with one shoulder as he turns to the visibly shaking, visibly spiralling Fire Nation girl.

‘Help me get him downstairs,’ he orders her, extremely unsympathetic to Pamiuq’s muttered _I can walk on my own_ as he _quite_ clearly cannot. Ursula’s eyes snap to his, and Ukiak can pinpoint the exact moment she shoves her panic and fear and desperation down, buries it somewhere deep and unfathomable, and his heart twists at the knowledge that a child has had to learn how to do that. 

*

‘Help me get him downstairs,’ Ukiak tells the prisoner, as if she isn't the very reason Pamiuq has to go downstairs in the first place, and Hakoda takes a step forward, preparing to explain why letting a firebender run around their very flammable ship is a bad idea.

Ukiak shoots him a glare. 

He doesn't undermine him in front of the crew, but Ukiak makes it perfectly clear that he is willing to fight Hakoda on this one; _the girl comes with me_ , his expression says, and Hakoda knows he won't win this argument. 

Hakoda nods stiffly. Pamiuq’s health is more important than the discussions they're inevitably going to have to have, consecutively, about the firebender and _with_ the firebender and on matters of questioning authority. 

Ukiak inclines his head, and Hakoda knows his old friend doesn't want to go against him here, but - well. This isn't the first time they've disagreed, and he trusts Ukiak’s judgment enough to wait.

The prisoner helps Pamiuq downstairs. 

Hakoda watches the three of them go, and tries not to think of everyone the Fire Nation has taken from him.

*

The burn covers his heart.

It could be worse; the fire only reached the first layer of his skin.

Ukiak treats it with boiled seawater and herbs, and Azula holds the small pots for him as he works.

She keeps her eyes on the cracked ceramic; she finds that if she looks at the burn she gets hit by a sickening wave of nausea rushing up her throat; the sensation is unpleasant. 

Azula never saw Zuko's burn when it was like this. It all happened so fast; he and Uncle Iroh were gone by morning, their ship steaming out of the harbour at first light like they couldn't wait to be rid of Caldera. 

Understandable, Azula knows, but the feeling still rankles. 

There are certain seconds that replay like ticker-tape in her mind.

The lieutenant’s eyes. Pamiuq’s lax fingers as he lay on the deck. The Chief’s angry gaze.

Azula finds that if she thinks about any of these moments too closely and overwhelming dizziness overcomes her, like her head is filled with hot sand that sends sparks of buzzing electricity through her brain whenever she remembers them.

As it is, she can't think of them. If she does anything other than focus on keeping her hands steady while Ukiak works, she feels sure she will cease to exist. 

Combust, perhaps. Disintegrate into ash and sparks and blow away on the wind that sweeps across the sea.

Azula closes her eyes.

*

The ship or an Earth Kingdom prison.

Hakoda runs a hand through his hair and leans his head in his hands. 

Should he keep the prisoner here or send her to some Earth Kingdom prison to wait out the rest of the war until she either is liberated, dies, or is traded back to the Fire Nation like a pawn? 

She’s a child. Hakoda doesn’t exactly rely on General Fong to keep her safe, but then - she’s a bender. Isn’t it better for everyone that she is kept in a place where she can’t do any damage? Where there are precautions to ensure that she does not escape, or use her bending to hurt anyone? 

Anyone _else_ , Hakoda reminds himself. There’s a dead body currently cooling up on deck to testify to that.

She killed to protect Pamiuq; Hakoda is inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt, even though he’s finding it hard to think of a teenager killing anyone without wanting to find and personally fight her parents for letting her get into this whole situation. 

But she proved that she _can_ kill when necessary, and bend _lightning_ to do so; she needs to be contained, and there’s no space on this very wooden, highly flammable ship to do so; the Earth Kingdom has specially-designed cells for firebenders.

But she’s a _child_.

Hakoda gives into the impulse to lay his head on the desk and wishes with all his heart that Bato was here.

His second would know how to deal with this. Bato had always been the diplomatic one, ever since they were young. Kanna would catch them sneaking extra pieces of seal jerks and all it would take was Bato’s isopuppy eyes and a mournful _but I haven't eaten today_ and Kanna would melt like ice on a campfire. Hakoda sometimes wondered if she didn't love Bato more than him; she certainly favoured him more.

But that was just the way of the tribe; they looked after their own.

Bato’s mother had died young; a freak accident, caught in a snowstorm when she was out on the ice. By the time they'd found her, not even Ukiak could save her from the hypothermia; she held on long enough to be found but she couldn't fight it in the end.

Bato’s father was devastated; it was then, Hakoda thinks, that it all started to go wrong with him. Kanguk had always been a cheerful man, ready with a quip or a joke to lift the mood whenever the cold set in and the dark days came, but after Ila’s death he - withdrew. Distanced himself, from the tribe, from his son, from his responsibilities as a man and a father.

But with Bato, it was different. The more his father withdrew, the more Bato tried to make up for his absence; he became the joker of the tribe, pulling pranks like getting people to laugh was his sole purpose in life. Like that would make up for the fact that his father couldn't look at him without seeing the ghost of his dead wife reflected in his son’s face.

The similarities between him and Sokka fill Hakoda with a deep, wounded kind of sadness he doesn’t like to think about too much. His son and his best friend are too alike, too determined to be _necessary_ and yet so certain they’re _enough_ just as themselves, even if they think no one else agrees. 

It’s uncomfortable, seeing that same determination mirrored on the face of a firebender.

*

Siku doesn't really understand what all the fuss is about.

Yeah, Ursula lied about being a firebender, but she also saved Pamiuq’s life and - most importantly - bent _actual lightning_ doing it.

That's pretty cool, and Siku wants to know _everything_ about it _right now_ , but Anik says they should give her some space for a while.

Siku can kind of see why; she _has_ just killed someone (with lightning!), and she's probably not going to want to talk about it for a while. Even the most experienced warriors don't like talking about their kills; well, all except Nanouk. Nanouk will talk about his kills at the _slightest_ provocation, which normally Siku would find cool, but he always has a kind of spiteful, endless bitterness coating his tone when he talks about killing Fire Nation soldiers, which does tend to dampen the mood somewhat. Siku likes a bit of drama with his tales, okay? Sue him.

He has never fully understood the anger that the other men feel towards the Fire Nation. He hates the war, of course, and he knows they have a right to be angry, but he's never felt the same way himself. 

Perhaps it's his origins; he's not from the Southern Water Tribe.

Siku was born in the Northern Water Tribe, and, up until the age of four, there he remained. When his father died, however, his mother took him and Yura and made the journey back to the South Pole where she'd been raised, and where - although Siku hadn't yet understood it - the true love of her life was.

Apaay and Yuka had been childhood friends; more than that, Siku now knows. His mother had even named her daughter after Yuka, just altered enough to be deniable, if anyone in the North Pole had thought to notice the similarity. The Northern tribe were less … understanding, about something like that. One of the many reasons Apaay chose to come back to the South. She and Yuka had set up in one of the inner tribes, closer to the ruins of the capital, and Siku had grown up with two mothers instead of one. He hadn't thought anything of it, but he knows Yura had had a hard time reconciling their father's memory with this new member of their small family. She'd been so protective, his sister. Always fighting to keep them safe, even at the expense of herself.

Yura’s been on his mind, recently.

She's always there, in the back of his mind, a bittersweet memory tainted with loss, but these days she seems to resurface more often, showing up in little nudges that trigger some long-forgotten memory to come tumbling out of his subconscious. Her determination, her anger, her sharp suspicion of anyone who got too close to her family.

He remembers what it was like when he and Pamiuq became friends; Yura had been six and highly suspicious of this new boy (who, in her eyes at least, had _no reason_ to be so interested in playing warriors with her younger brother).

It took Pamiuq’s endless (and remarkably patient, for a five-year-old) attempts to show her that _no, he was not going to hurt Siku_ for her to stop following them around like a particularly vindictive shadow.

She expected boys to be liars; the Northern tribe did not have the best track record when it came to teaching its men to respect women, and Yura had spent too much time there to be easily convinced of an unknown kid’s supposed niceness.

Siku wishes he'd listened to her views on people more. She always said no matter how good someone’s intentions seemed, you could never fully trust them; _an ashmaker in blue is still an ashmaker, they’re just in blue_ , she used to say, with a look in her eye like she’d just solved world peace, nevermind the fact she’d got that saying from their father.

*

There's a knock at the door and Azula tenses instantly. The Chief must have finally come to take her away and decide her punishment - or maybe not even that, maybe just a knife or an axe or the ocean, without a trial or duel or any kind of honour; a fitting death, he’d probably say, Azula thinks, and doesn’t realise her breathing’s stopped until Ukiak lays a hand on her shoulder as he gets up to open the door.

‘Hey,’ Siku says, subdued. ‘I brought dinner.’

Azula wishes for one wild second that it _had_ been the Chief; at least then she’d _know_ what they were going to do with her.

Siku sets one of the plates by Azula and sits down beside her, curling his legs underneath himself and resting his own plate on top of them.

Ukiak goes back to the table.

They eat in silence. Every now and then, Siku leans a little to his right, nudging his shoulder against Azula's. He stays resting against her for longer each time, the warmth from his shoulder bleeding into hers. Azula doesn't know why he's doing it, but she's beyond the point where she'll deny the comfort it brings, however little it does to dispel the thick, dark mess of bitterness and panic and fear in her chest.

‘How is he?’ Siku asks, eyes fixed on Pamiuq’s sleeping form. The bandage on his chest obscures the burn, wrapping it away in pure white fabric like that can hide the evidence of Azula’s mistakes from her mind.

‘He'll be fine,’ Ukiak replies after a moment of silence that spans two geological ages.

Azula’s stomach rolls with a rush of bitterness, chasing her unsteady appetite away. Pamiuq should be awake right now, should be conscious and healthy and _unburned_ , sitting next to them and eating dinner and laughing at Siku’s stupid jokes, not lying in that bunk with a burn over his heart.

Siku nudges her again. For one truly debilitating moment, Azula thinks she’s about to cry.

‘Did I tell you about what Aklaq said to that Earth Kingdom dressmaker that one time?’ Siku says, settling back further against the wall and continuing without waiting for a reply. ‘So, there's Aklaq, right, just minding his own business, and then this -’

‘Siku, what are you doing?’ Azula asks, completely at sea.

‘Uh, _excuse you_ , I am telling a story,’ Siku says primly. ‘So, _as I was saying_ \- there's this dressmaker, right, and I mean she's like four feet tall and, like, probably eats glass shards for breakfast, which, _yikes_ -’

Azula lets him ramble on, glancing at Ukiak to see if he understands what this is.

The corner of his mouth twitches up into a small smile as he meets her eyes, and his gaze rests on Siku’s reclining form for a moment, quietly approving. 

Azula relaxes slowly against the wall, and listens to Siku talk.

*

Nanouk is...conflicted.

That isn't a word he thought he'd ever associate with the Fire Nation, but unfortunately for him the spirits seem set on subverting all of his expectations for life, so.

The prisoner is a firebender.

This should in all fairness make Nanouk hate her, except - she saved Pamiuq’s life. This should in all fairness mean she's a hero, except - she's a firebender.

Except she saved Pamiuq’s life.

Except -

Nanouk bangs his head against the railing.

This is not going well. 

The girl was _just_ about bearable when she _wasn't_ a bender; now she's a veritable lightning-slinger, Nanouk can't stop the reflexive anger he feels. Doesn't want to, because the Fire Nation had hurt his Tribe and his family and taken his people away from him and he's _perfectly_ within his rights to be fucking furious about that.

Siku lost his sister. Pamiuq lost his uncle. Aklaq lost his brother, Ukiak lost his wife and daughter, Anik hasn't met his son, hell, Hakoda lost his _wife_ to the Fire Nation, and Nanouk cannot understand why he hasn't flung the prisoner into the sea yet because Nanouk for one thinks it would be a pretty fitting death for an _ashmaker_. 

He lets out a frustrated sigh, leaning his head against his arms on the railing.

He does know why Hakoda hasn't killed the girl. It's the same reason why Ukiak kept her alive those first few days, why Anik taught her how to repair sails and keep the ship in working order, why Siku and Pamiuq call her their _friend_ , why Nanouk can't _quite_ bring himself to hate her.

She's just a kid, born in the wrong place, with the wrong element bestowed upon her. 

Nanouk can't hate _her_ because she's not responsible for the suffering he's been made to feel, no matter how much he loathes her bending and all who practice it. It's not her fault, and Nanouk feels remarkably tolerant as he thinks that. He may be angry and bitter and sad, but he's better than the ashmakers; _he_ doesn't hate them all blindly. 

Fuck. That isn't helping.

Nanouk can't hate _her_ , but he can hate the element she wields. 

There are many scars he bears from the destructive nature of fire; scars from battle, from the Southern Raiders, from firebenders who followed a tyrant blindly and committed atrocities at his behest.

The girl isn't a solider or a general or a guard; she's a _child_ , who was found floating unconscious in the freezing sea and whose made Nanouk’s life fucking hell ever since. 

Nanouk has never been one to believe in the spirits, but the sea did not claim the Fire Nation girl when she was weak and defenceless; that seems like it should be some kind of sign, now. 

And the problem is that, even now, Nanouk can hear his brother’s voice telling him _fire isn't evil; it's the people who wield it that make it so._

What is Nanouk supposed to do with that? The girl wields fire - is she evil? She used it to save Pamiuq’s life - that has to mean she's _good_.

Anik believes she's a child who cannot be held accountable for the sins of her nation; Aklaq doesn't want to talk about it, and the rest of the crew are too battle weary and bruised to care. 

Nanouk wishes someone would just tell him what he's meant to feel; the anger or the understanding.

Anger, because the girl betrayed the fragile trust they'd given her.

Understanding, because she is a firebender in the company of the Water Tribe, and she'd be an idiot to willingly reveal that fact.

And, beneath all that, there's a shallow pool of _hurt_ that Nanouk doesn't want to think about, because that would mean admitting to himself that he'd begun to respect the girl.

The girl who bent _lightning_.

The Fire Nation _prisoner_ who lied to them all and saved Pamiuq’s life.

 _Fuck_. Nanouk doesn't know what to think.

He can't remember a time before the Fire Nation. 

His brother can. Nanouk never knows how that works, when Siluk is five years younger than him and terrible at keeping track of his own life, but it's true. Siluk says he remembers a time before the Fire Nation attacked their tribe, when they weren't considered important enough to be bothered with. 

Their tribe had been a small, outlying one, on the outer ice beyond Hakoda’s village, a subset of the greater tribe. They'd been small, yes, but they'd had warriors and waterbenders and a _place_. 

The Southern Raiders had come unexpectedly. 

Nanouk can't remember the first attack; he'd been about eight, he knows, but somehow he can never quite dredge the memory of that battle up from his mind. Siluk says it happened quickly, almost without fanfare.

They'd come, and then Nanouk’s father was gone. 

He, at least, remembers that. Siluk never really knew their father, but Nanouk can picture him even now, the way he'd make tiny figures out of ice for them to play with, how much he loved his bending, how he always made sure to tell them that it didn't matter that they didn't have any. 

Sometimes he'd wondered, though. If only Nanouk had had his father's powers, perhaps Siluk would still be here, instead of in some far-off cell in a dark Fire Nation prison, with no hope of rescue and without his brother to protect him.

Thinking of Siluk always hurts, but Nanouk has learnt to keep a handle on the bone - deep anger and panic he feels whenever he thinks of his little brother, who doesn't even know how to _lie_ properly, in a place like the Fire Nation. 

The desperation that creeps into his dreams at night, because Siluk is _alone_ and Nanouk can't do anything to help him. 

*

When the others are gone, Azula lies awake on her blanket on the floor and listens to the slow, even sound of Pamiuq’s breathing, and falls asleep matching her exhales to his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...yeah. *shrugs in emotionally wrecked writer*
> 
> the next chapter SHOULD be out in about two weeks, bc as much as i would love to churn out a chapter per week like i used to, we're getting into the plot-heavy area now and i want the quality of the chapters to be the best it can so. two weeks or so. but, i mean, they're going to be longer? 
> 
> come yell at me about posting schedules on [Tumblr](https://presumptious-quirks.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Warnings: graphic descriptions of violence, battle scenes, description of blood, panic attacks, minor character death

**Author's Note:**

> yes i know announcing herself as the Fire Princess is very cool and powerful but listen, l i s t e n, this is _Azula_ we're talking about here. girl probably doesn't take a _step_ without analysing the diplomatic ramifications of it  
> oF CoUrSe she's going to let them think she's just a noble 
> 
> also I'm on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/presumptious-quirks)


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